


A New Life

by OngoingCrisis



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Medium Burn, Oral Sex, Past Relationship(s), Reader-Insert, Sex, Smut, Stalking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:34:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 49,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25420033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OngoingCrisis/pseuds/OngoingCrisis
Summary: Caltech, 2002. A boy meets a girl.New York, 2020. A man meets a woman.When an old face comes back into Spencer’s life, entangled in a dangerous case and trying to survive, Spencer finds himself unable to keep away from her. Old pains, old heartbreaks, new hopes, and maybe a new life.If her stalker doesn’t get to her first.
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Original Female Character(s), Spencer Reid/Reader
Comments: 272
Kudos: 422





	1. Chapter 1

The piece of paper Hannah had given me had listed the office as 308, which helpfully appeared not to exist. I stared exhaustedly at the blank wall space between 306 and 310. The offices were tucked away at the end of a maze of corridors that appeared not to have reached into this century and the miracles of air conditioning. My hypothesis was only confirmed by the presence of a flyer tacked to a notice board advertising a series of guest lectures by a Dr. Richard Greene, beginning October 1995. The layer of dust only added to the comedic neglect. I sighed, and checked my watch. 

I’d been pushing it with office hours as was - and I was going to be too late if I carried on hunting through the corridors for the elusive 308, which appeared to counter the occupant’s preference for linear algebra. I swore under my breath, and swept my hair back off my forehead, rubbing at the headache that threatened just as the door to 306 clicked open. 

I took a step back to allow the occupant out, but he seemed so shocked by someone standing outside his office that he dropped the folio he was holding, scattering notebooks over the floor. 

“I’m sorry,” I said, dropping to the floor to help him gather them up. He accepted them sheepishly, tucking them into the messenger bag he had slung across his body. 

“No - my fault. I wasn’t expecting to see someone here so late.” He looked curiously at me. “Were you looking for someone?” 

“Yeah,” I sighed, dusting off my knees. “I was looking for Dr. Reid, but I couldn’t find his office.”

He seemed amused by this. “Which office were you looking for?” 

“306,” I answered, holding up the scrap of paper Mel had scribbled on. 

“There’s no room 306. Nobody knows why.” I glanced back down to the page, and cocked my head. The 6 could be an 8, and Mel’s handwriting was shocking. 

“Do you know where he actually works?” I asked, tiredly. I needed this project over and done with. Mel’s wild goose chase wasn’t helpful when I had a term paper due tomorrow, a heap of laundry and a grocery shop to do. 

“Well, yeah. Me.” He frowned, seeming to stumble on his words a little as he tried to correct them. “I mean - I am. I’m Dr. Reid.” I couldn’t help it. I looked him up and down. He wasn’t any older than me. This kid was a postdoctoral researcher? 

I tried not to sound too rude in my surprise. “Oh - I wasn’t expecting…” It sounded rude. “You’re very young for a PhD.” 

To my surprise, he didn’t seem offended. He almost preened under my surprise. “Two, actually. Chemistry and Mathematics.” 

“Oh,” I replied, on slightly more steady footing. “They don’t seem to lend to each other.” 

“They’re more aligned than most people realise. I’m working on my third in Engineering now.” There was an indifférent sense of pride in the way he spoke of his qualifications - as though they were toys to be collected rather than qualifications for a field. He was one of those sorts - a pure academic who sought degrees for their own sake, and who would never leave the cloistered tower of the university. It seemed such a bleak future for someone so young. “Why were you looking for me?” 

I was startled back into the conversation. “I’m working on a project that my supervisor thinks you may be able to assist on. Game Theory, Econ.” 

His eyes lit up, and I realised why Mel had sent me to him. “What’s the specialty?” 

I pulled out my notebook, and held it out to him. “I’m trying to map a computational curve in Nash’s équilibra to apply it to modern card games. The analysis I’ve done so far is good, but Mel wanted it checked and she recommended you.” 

I had apparently piqued his interest. He unlocked the door to his office again, his nose buried in my notebook as he flicked through at speed. 

“Oh, I’ve written my notes…” I began, but he waved me into the sole visitor’s chair. I shifted a pile of papers onto the footlocker and sat down on the tired fabric as he continued to race through my notebook. 

“Are you...reading?” 

“Yes,” he replied, as if that didn’t ask more questions than it answered. He seemed to have the answer prepared before I could interject. “The conscious brain can process sixteen items of information a second, our unconscious mind can process eleven million.” 

I raised an eyebrow. “Carl Jung would love you.” 

He appeared too absorbed in my notebook to hear the joke. I found myself making a brief study of him - the soft brown hair clipped in a sharp style that seemed a few years out of date, the sensible, slightly dowdy clothes under the brown jacket. His clothes wouldn’t be out of place on a middle aged professor.

That’s mean, I chastised myself. You don’t exactly look a picture either. 

I glanced back at Spencer, who had reached over for a book from the bookcase beside him without even looking up, identifying it by feel alone and flicking it open against my scrawlings. 

I drew my knee up, crossing it over the other as I moved on from a study of the man to his stuffy office. It was shared with at least one other - I could see a desk pushed against the wall. His neighbour was messy where Spencer was pin neat, with papers stuck to the wall, up the bookshelf and over the unused computer monitor. I recognised the scrawlings as topographical analysis and shuddered. 

“This is good,” Spencer said, with a note of surprise in his tone that I might have been offended by had I not known that he didn’t mean it. “I’ve annotated a couple of the more complex ones with a different formula to account for the shift in variables. If you leave your notebook with me, I’ll check over the other variations and come back to you with a workable application.”

I blinked at him, and he misread my shock as offense. “Sorry, was that not what you wanted?”

“No - yes, I… That’s very generous Dr. Reid. And a hell of a lot of work for someone who isn’t in my department.” 

He waved me off. “I like game theory as a mathematical theorem. And your assessment of its applicable use in poker is...interesting.” 

“Don’t use it to start sharking on the casinos,” I warned jokily. “They’re not fans.”

“I’m banned from most of the big Vegas ones,” he replied evenly. “So this is academic anyway.” 

I saw an opening. “It doesn’t have to be,” I said, drawing out a pack of cards from my bag. “I could show you the applicable tenets of the theorem in one game.” 

His eyes widened as he cleared his desk, placing my notebook carefully to one side as I began to lay out the cards for five draw. He quirked a smile, and I paused.

“Banned?” I queried. 

“Mm,” he agreed, keeping his eyes on the cards. He certainly wasn’t new to this. 

“Card counting or bending corners?” I asked, keeping my palms open so he could see the cards being dealt. 

“Card counting. But they threw me out because I was only fifteen.” I couldn’t help but smile at that - this beanpole of a dorky academic sharking at cards, and the surprised smile he offered in return spread a warmth through me that had nothing to do with the warm evening. 

“So, the optimal strategy…” I began.

*

He threw his last hand down in frustration, as I scooped yet another winning hand. I smiled at him as I pushed the cards towards him to deal. “I believe that last set was four for four. Feel free to concede any time, Doctor.” 

He picked them up, but instead of shuffling them with the considerable finesse I’d been enraptured by earlier in the game, he flicked them absentmindedly from hand to hand. 

“Why Economics? And why game theory in Economics in particular?” he asked. 

“As opposed to what?” I asked. “I optioned Economics as my major, which means in order to stay remotely interested in the subject I need to do as little of it as practically possible,” I smiled. “How about you?” 

He shifted uncomfortably. “I just get another degree if I’m interested in the subject enough.” 

“An overachiever.” I diagnosed, sitting back in my seat. “Fortunately for you Dr. Reid, I am a dedicated middle-achiever.” 

“Why is that fortunate for me?” he asked, confused. 

I glanced out the window to where the campus had fallen dark during our rowdy game. “Because it’s late, and I need to be getting home, as opposed to continuing to kick your ass at a game you professed yourself to ‘never lose’ in.” 

He smiled at that, and offered me my cards back. I waved him off. “Keep then to practice with. I want a proper game next time, against somebody who can beat me.” 

“How far away do you live?” he asked, swinging his messenger bag back over his body.

“Inviting yourself back for a little follow though?” I teased. It was entirely the wrong thing to say. Dr. Reid flushed bright red and stammered out a “no, I-“ in protest. 

“I’m sorry,” I apologised. “I shouldn’t have said that.” 

“I just meant...it’s dark and late, and I didn’t want you to not get home safely.” 

“I know,” I said, trying to make my voice as reassuring as I could. “I made a stupid joke, and I made you uncomfortable. That wasn’t fair.”

“No, no,” he protested, “it was funny. I wasn’t expecting it, that’s all it was.”

“Dr. Reid,” I said, daring to place a hand on his arm. “You don’t have to apologise. You’ve done me a huge favour looking over my work, and then testing the applied theory out way into your own time. I shouldn’t have said that - I was enjoying myself and I made a thoughtless comment. You don’t have to apologise when someone makes you uncomfortable.” 

He seemed stunned by the words, and I watched him open the door for me slightly warily. It took him a beat, and then he cleared his throat. 

“I’d like to walk you home.” His words were careful, and I waited patiently for him to finish them, letting him speak without interruption which he seemed to find relieving. “It’s dark, and you’re on your own. And it’s statistically safer to travel in small groups during quiet periods and particularly after dark. And I don’t like the idea of you on your own.” 

“Thank you,” I said softly, and let him lead me back down the maze of corridors to the exit. 

“How long have you been a student?” I asked, trying to reinstate the light, easy conversation we’d shared while playing cards. 

“Nine years,” he answered, and I blinked at him in surprise. “Undergraduate here, then my first PhD at MIT, then I came back here for the rest.”

“Massachusetts weather not balmy enough?” I teased. “Miss the bad pizza?” 

“No,” he smiled, but he didn’t finish the sentence and I didn’t push him. 

“How old are you anyway?” I asked once we were walking towards the main dorms. 

“Twenty-one,” he answered, and I blinked up at him. 

“Huh,” I said, and he frowned down at me in confusion. “We’re the same age,” I explained. “I feel so much younger than you.”

“I’ve had a viva twice over,” he joked. “Enough to age anyone ten years.” 

I stopped by the entrance to my dorm, and turned to face him. 

“Thank you for walking me back Dr. Reid. And for your help with the analysis - you have no idea how much help it’s going to be in getting this project done by the end of the semester.” 

“Spencer,” he said, and I blinked up at him. “My name. Spencer.”

“Spencer,” I tested, and smiled at him. “Thanks.” 

He waited until he saw me inside, and then turned up the collar of his coat, even though it was still warm out, and walked off towards the western end of campus. It was only as I saw him disappear out of the streetlamps that I realised that I hadn’t told him when I’d see him again.

*

When Wednesday rolled around, I ducked out of my Macroecon class slightly early, placing my hand on my forehead to feign a headache for the curious lecturer. I slipped out of the doors at the top of the lecture hall and jogged across the square to the Mathematics department. I had been in here once as a freshman and it took me a moment to reorient myself as I slipped in with the other students heading into the lecture theatre. I took a seat at the top of the hall, aiming for inconspicuity behind a tall boy in a Dabney sweater dozing off a heavy night as I took out my pen and a notepad. At eleven precisely, the door opened and Spencer stepped in, his hands holding a lever arch and a green notepad that even from all the way at the top of the hall I could see as mine. It stirred something in my stomach to see it - the evidence that he’d been thinking about me enough to carry around my notepad, working on my scrawled calculations in an attempt to right them into something workable. 

When the lecture started, I found myself drifting on the sound of his voice. There was a confidence to his tone here - his expertise and the slight detachment from the passivity of the student body listening combined to provide the perfect environment for him to relax into a role that suited him. It was striking to watch - the shy young man who’d come alive during a riotous card game, to the kind boy who’d walked me all the way to my dorm, to this cool, confident teacher lecturing to a few hundred students with practiced ease. 

My math was good enough to carry me through most of the lecture, and I even made a few notes of items that would have an application in Econ. His way of teaching was remarkably intuitive - this was decidedly not first year Math Basics and yet I had understood enough to be able to apply the technique even without any contextual knowledge of the theorem it was designed to prove. 

When the lecture ended, I remained in my seat, watching a few students drift down to ask questions. He answered them, his hands animated as he shaped them to demonstrate some unheard question. Once the last student had turned to the door, he looked up and saw me walking down the steps towards him. 

“Hi,” I said. 

“Did you sit in on my class?” he asked, and I could see the hint of a smile he was struggling to hide. 

“I did. You’re a good teacher,” I said, warmly. 

He blushed slightly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his slacks before pulling one out so fast his keys caught in his sweater and dropped to the floor. He blushed harder as he bent to pick it up. 

“I have your notebook,” he said, reaching across the projector to grab it. “I reworked a couple of variables so the data is more comparable, but the analysis is absolutely sound.” 

I smiled widely at that. “You have no idea how relieving it will be to get this typed up and submitted. Thank you.” 

“I liked reading it,” he said, shyly. “The psychology element you referred to was interesting. It’s not usually considered in mathematical analyses of poker too much. Too much of an unpredictable variable. Mathematicians prefer poker played by robots.”

“Lots of microeconomic theory is based in psychology.” I replied aimlessly, distracted by the sight of his hands flexing in his pockets, and his jaw tensing, as though there was something he wanted to ask. When nothing came out, I decided to be bold instead. 

“Do you want to get a coffee?” I asked. “We could talk more about it.” 

He glanced at the clock. “I have a class in an hour. Could we get a coffee afterwards?” 

“Sure,” I said, a touch deflated. “I like to work out of the Java Hut on campus - come by whenever.” 

I didn’t look back as I walked out of the lecture hall, but I could feel his eyes on my back every step of the way. 

*  
Two hours and fifteen minutes later, Spencer had showed up at the Java Hut, his eyes anxious as they scanned the quieting shop before settling on me, tapping away at my laptop on one of the high tables with a full pot of filter coffee set out for me. It was forty-five minutes to close, and Wendy seemed grateful for some custom. He ordered, and she waved him off, telling him she’d bring it over once the pot was done. 

“Hi,” he said quietly as he took a seat. “Sorry I didn’t come earlier. I wanted to, but I didn’t want to cut you short to go teach.”

“That’s ok,” I said, closing the lid of my laptop and taking a sip of the now cooling coffee. “I liked watching you teach.” I watched him drop his head as the tips of his ear flushed pink. “Do you always do that?”

“Do what?” 

“Look away when someone pays you a compliment.”

Wendy interrupted his answer as she brought over a fresh pot of coffee for him. I watched, amused as he poured out a cup, and then emptied half of the sugar cellar into it. I cocked an eyebrow and he shrugged.

“I’m not really used to it,” he answered, candidly. 

“Well, you are. You’re an excellent teacher.” This time, he made the effort to keep my gaze as his lips fought off that shy smile of nerves. 

“Why do you do Economics?” he asked, and I studied the abrupt change of subject with considerable intérêt as I answered. 

“Versatile,” I answered. “I can study game theory for one semester, then move on to terrorist economies, then do post-Soviet macroeconomic theories of public policy. Never have to stand still, or do the same thing over and over.” I couldn’t resist the light jab. “All in one degree.” 

He smiled at that, taking a sip from his sugar water and smiling at my nose wrinkled disgust. “And after?”

“No idea,” I said, with a degree of finality. “I don’t think past getting through my thesis right now.”

He asked what my thesis was about, and I regaled him with the story of drafting seven separate topics and being unable to choose. In return, he told me about his first undergraduate, where the professors stopped giving him homework because he’d do it, and the rest of the work assigned in the textbook over two days. He didn’t say how old he was, but the way he described himself… he sounded young, and part of my heart hurt for him. He told me about his first viva, when he’d attempted to shave for the first time despite having no discernible facial hair, and he’d ended up attending with a face dotted in bloody nicks. I returned the story with the time I’d burned my hair off in an attempt to get light highlights and natural curls before prom.

Being with him was easy, like relaxing into comfortable company. Our coffees sat forgotten on the table as we talked, and it was only when Wendy came over to take our crockery that we realised how late it was. We looked at one another, not quite ready to end whatever this was just yet. I’d invite him back to mine, but my roommate was preparing for a hallway party, and as much as he was the same age as us, I didn’t think Spencer would be keen for that. 

He swallowed as I explained this. “We - we could go back to mine. It’s not far.”

“Sure,” I said softly, bumping my shoulder against his as we walked. Spencer lived slightly off campus in a tiny studio. The bed doubled as a couch and storage unit, facing an empty TV unit piled high with books. The kitchenette was facetiously clean - the only visible utensil being an old coffee maker. 

“I only have Folgers,” he began, but I put us both out of our misery by pushing him against the wall and pressing my lips to his in a soft, explorative kiss. His hands came up to my back, resting awkwardly there as mine trailed up his chest to cup his neck gently, the other resting lightly against his chest. His returning kiss was hesitant, but I sensed the hesitation was from nerves rather than distaste for me. When I tried to pull back, he tightened his hands around my back, and I pulled him into a deeper kiss as I tugged him away from the wall. I took a few steps back, pulling him with me as I went, finding the edge of his bed with the back of my thighs and pulling him down on top of me as I fell back onto the bed. He landed on me with a slightly undignified ‘oof’ but I had rolled on top of him before he could react, leaving him resting on the bed as I sat up, straddling his hips and flipped my hair down over one shoulder to control the strands. His hand came up to my head, partially to cradle it, and partially to keep my hair out of our kiss. His hips bucked upwards involuntarily, and I moved mine purposefully, trying to elicit a moan out of him. His reaction instead was to freeze, his eyes flying open and pulling back and away from our kiss. 

“Hey,” I said, “what happened?” 

He looked up at me, and amidst the undeniable arousal, I saw nerves? Anxiety? Fear?

“You’ve not done this before.” 

Spencer flushed, and shifted backwards, drawing his limbs away from me. It wasn’t easy, the bed was a barely a twin, and my limbs were draped over his, entwining us and trapping Spencer beneath me with no escape. 

He didn’t need to voice an answer - his movement told me everything I needed to know. His eyes dropped as I drew my hand under his chin. 

“Hey,” I murmured. “Look at me.” He appeared to be struggling, and then finally relented into the pressure I was applying against his chin. 

“I know. It’s weird,” he replied, his voice strained. 

“It’s not weird, Spencer,” I chastised. 

“Yes it is,” he protested, pushing my hand from his chin and trying to shrug me off of him. I saw it before he could, the instinctive desire to curl in on himself, to shy away from touch, to retreat into the shell he had built for himself. It broke my heart, and enraged me in equal measure. No shell is built without pain. My gentle, kind Spencer deserved better than that.

I caught his wrist as it fell away from my hand, gripping it tightly and watching the shock spread across his face. 

“Don’t disagree with me. This isn’t a class discussion.” His eyes were wide, and I watched as he took a careful, ragged breath - waiting for my next movement. I obliged, bringing up my other hand from his waist to his shoulder and pushing him back against the bed. “It isn’t weird, Spencer,” I continued, enunciating my distaste for the word and sentiment behind it. “Your whole life has been on fast forward. You’ve skipped so many grades that you missed out on the social life of being a student. You were what, fourteen when you started college?”

“Twelve,” he breathed. 

“Twelve.” I felt a surge of anger in my stomach. Weird. Like he was ever given a chance to be normal. “You’ve spent your whole life in fast forward, Doctor. All the time that I had to explore growing up, you were going too fast to be given that chance. You had a doctorate by the time I finished high school.” 

He stopped fighting my gaze, and stared placidly up at me. “I wasn’t going to say no,” he murmured. “You tell a kid that he can go to college, get away from…” he broke off, and dropped his eyes to his hands, his thumbnail digging into the pad of his hand as if trying to stave off a painful memory, or perhaps the wetness pooling on his lashes. I softened my voice, and brought my hand around his chin to cup it. 

“Spencer.” He didn’t look up, and I called him again, more insistently. His look was pure reluctance as he met my eyes. 

“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered. “I’ve never…” 

I shushed him softly, a comforting reassurance more than a censorship of his words. “Right now,” I said, “You and I are the same age. I’ve had more experience because I’ve been around kids our own age all of my life. That’s all it is. You’re not weird, and I couldn’t give less of a damn if you’ve never been with anyone before.” I moved to straddle his hips again, pressing my clothed core against the gentle swell of his groin. “I can teach you how to do that. Everything else is just detail.” 

I watched steadily as Spencer’s hips bucked against me, and brought my hands down to his stomach, playing with the hem of his t-shirt. 

“Can I take this off?” He nodded, almost frantic as he reached down to pull it off before I could, and I hid the soft smile as I reached down to help him untangle an uncoordinated elbow before tossing the fabric onto the floor. Once his chest was exposed, I pressed my palms against the smooth skin, rewarded with an audible hitch in his breathing as I smoothed them down his torso in a comforting action, and then dropped them to catch his wrists, bringing his hands up to rest on my hips. I felt them dig into the flesh as I pulled my own tank over my head, leaving me in the cotton bra I’d tossed on earlier. 

“Do you want to take it off?” His fingers traced up my back to the hook, as though afraid if he let go I would disappear. He fumbled for a second, and then the clips loosened, and I slipped the straps down my arms and tossed it after our shirts. 

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, and I deflected. 

“You haven’t seen the rest of me yet.” 

“Can we… can we just…” he stumbled, and I placed a soothing hand on his arm. 

“We do this at your pace. Do you want to touch me?” 

“Yes,” he gasped, but I heard the uncertainty and cocked my head, waiting for him to continue. “I just don’t know...I’ve not…” 

In lieu of a reply, I caught hold of the hand resting back on my hip, and drew it over my now bare stomach, dragging the fingertips gently over it and back again, a tiny, rhythmic motion that was more soothing than necessarily arousing. When I released his hand, he continued, brushing the fingers over the warmth of my abdomen as I mimicked the motion on his arm. 

“It’s the build up,” I murmured. “Touch me gently, it doesn’t matter where. Make me focus on what your hand is doing.” His touch became more purposeful, and more confident, and I wanted to smack my hand against my forehead. 

I should have realised he’d respond to being taught, rather than directionless exploration. He was a learner, not a winger. That was on me. 

“Stroke over my ribs,” I murmured, and shivered as he did so. I chanced a look, and the look of hesitant delight in Spencer’s eyes at my reaction was enough to spread a warmth through me that had nothing to do with the heat of the room. He experimented with the pattern, up and down, tracing each rib, using the beds of his nails against the skin, and I couldn’t stop the gasp as he found the spot just beneath my breast. 

“Good?” he breathed, and I nodded as his thumb tentatively edged around the curve of my nipple. 

“If it’s not good, I’ll move your hand, or say no,” I murmured, and he seemed to relax, letting his eyes cast over my body instead of fixed on my face in anxious expectation. 

“Can you kiss me again?” he whispered. He didn’t need to ask twice. I leaned down, cupping his chin in my hands and pressed a scorching kiss against him. This was far from the gentle exchange from earlier - this was pure, burning lust, and I swallowed the groan he let out with pleasure. I leaned my weight into the kiss, dragging my fingertips up through his hair and grazing them along his scalp. His left hand was still diligently cupping my breast - boldly stroking over the tip with more confidence now, eliciting a pleased moan from me. His other hand traced up my torso, over my ribs and up to cup my jaw, pulling me deeper into the kiss. I broke it first, grinding down against him in a thoroughly unfair advantage play. He looked dazedly at me, and then brushed his thumb over his lips, hesitant.

I sat up on my haunches. “Ask your question.” 

He hesitated, and I shifted against him again, teasing a groan out of him. “It’s not, I just…”

I leaned forward, relieving the weight I’d been resting gently against his groin. His hips thrust up behind me into the air, grinding up against nothing. “Ask your question Spencer. No fillers, no dancing around the point.” His eyes widened, and I saw the hazy arousal build within them as his torso relaxed. 

“I want to touch you,” he tried, but I lifted my eyebrows expectantly and he rephrased. “Can I touch you?” 

“Where do you want to touch me?” 

He swallowed, and I relished in his innocence for a moment. “Everywhere,” he breathed. His eyes flickered up to mine, and I indulged him. 

“Lie me back, and take my pants off.” He fumbled one his eagerness to obey, but calmed under a brief raised eyebrow from me. His hands were gentle as they cradled my back, lowering me to the bed with such hesitant tenderness, I might have melted. 

“I won’t break,” I whispered, as his hands dropped to the button of my jeans. I helped him, lifting my hips so he could slide my jeans and underwear down my thighs. I had to bury the snort into a settled sigh as I watched his eyes take me, all of me, in. 

“Spencer,” I reminded him. He shook his head as if dazed, and then looked up at me. 

“I don’t know how, how do you li…I mean I know...” he was clearly struggling, but I let him run on, watching his cheeks flush. “I know what to do, in theory. I’ve just…”

“Ask your question,” I reminded him, in the same even tone as before. His shoulders relaxed, the soft objective tone reminding him that there was no room for shame in this bed, only growth. 

“I want to touch you. Show me how.” It wasn’t a question, and I reached up to cup his cheek. 

“You’ll want to be comfortable,” I said softly, watching him adjust his legs until he was curled against my side. I stretched up to kiss his jaw, and then guided his hand onto my core. The sensation of his fingers moving across me so tentatively was enough to make me shiver as he grazed over the soft skin. I let out a little hiss, and his eyes flickered to mine. “I’m good,” I whispered. “Touch me.” 

His fingers dipped between my spread thighs, and I could practically see the man mapping the anatomy in his head. On anyone else, it would have been a turn off. On Spencer, it was endearing. 

He swallowed hard as I hissed again as those soft fingers grazed over the hood of my clit. “Yes,” I hissed. Everything seemed so much more alive in this bed, every sensation heightened. “Gently,” I cautioned, as his pressure increased. I applied the lightest guiding pressure on his hand, fighting to keep still as his fingers dipped down, gathering a little wetness and then trailed back up to my clit. I nodded encouragingly as his fingers began tracing a rhythmic circle, pressing lightly at first and then building pressure. My head tipped back, and my mouth opened as I relaxed into the movement. Emboldened, Spencer dropped his mouth to my breast, teasing the nipple softly, and mumbling encouragement as my hips started to move against his hand - chasing the friction as the knot in the base of my stomach began to curl softly. 

“Spencer…” I breathed, and he lifted his head as my hips began to move more frenetically. “Just keep…” I couldn’t finish my sentence, but he seemed to understand the sentiment, keeping the pace and pressure I’d set with soft determination. I could feel his own arousal pressing insistently against my thigh, and the hitch in his breathing against my neck. “Please.” I managed - as though he wouldn’t. He mumbled my name brokenly against my neck as his fingers worked insistently, building and building until I was there - the knot snapping taut and every muscle contracting impossibly tight and then relaxing in a single smooth movement, the tension releasing through my core as the edges of my vision greyed out with the gasping little breaths I took to come down. 

He slowed his hand, keeping it against me until I clasped his wrist to hold it still as I turned my head to press my lips against his forehead, feeling his unsteady exhalations against the column of my throat.

“You weren’t kidding when you said that you learned fast,” I managed, and felt his lips quirk into a hesitant smile. I tried to regulate my own breathing as I gently shifted on shaky limbs to sit up. Spencer’s eyes followed me, heavy with arousal but widening with trepidation as I dropped my hands to his pants. I hesitated, trying to read his expression as we each waited for the other. 

“We don’t have to,” I murmured, tracing he tips of my index fingers over his abdomen soothingly. “But I’d like to.” 

He offered a hesitant nod, but I dropped my hands, and reached up to place them on his shoulder, lifting his chin on a crooked forefinger. “Hey. What’s going on in there?” 

“I want to,” he managed at last, and I saw the embarrassed honesty in his eyes as they met mine. “I just don’t wanna...you know.” I raised my eyebrows, prompting an elaboration. “Go too early.”

“Well, you probably will,” I replied, shifting my weight on steadier legs to wrap my arms around his shoulders. “Men are faster than women anyway, and we’ve been building up for a while. Controlling orgasms comes with practice. You’ve already gotten me off, which is more consideration than some have - Spencer,” I said, as his eyes dropped at my words. “It’s all good. It all feels good.” 

He looked at me, and leaned in for a kiss that I gladly reciprocated - keeping it soft and intimate as his hands traced up my bare back and through the tangles in my hair. I let him guide the pace, sensing the kiss was more for soothing his nerves than anything else. He broke it only to kiss down my neck as he reached down to unbutton his pants. I dropped my hands to help, and he hissed at the contact, and then widened his mouth in an aroused groan as he pushed both pants and boxers down and kicked them onto the floor. As he dealt with his socks, I reached over to my purse, resting where I’d left it on the nightstand, and pulled out a condom from the zippered pocket. 

“Do you want me to put it on?” I said quietly, but he shook his head, taking the package from me and sliding it on with impressive finesse. I cocked an eyebrow, and it seemed to break the nervousness radiating off of him. 

“The things that I could practice, I did,” he smiled, and I reached up to cup a hand on his chin, even as the other reached up a hand to swipe a pillow from the top of his bed. His eyes followed in confusion as I lifted my hips and positioned it under my ass. 

“Easier angle,” I explained. “And more comfortable than a spring digging into you.” The hesitation was back in his eyes, and I reached for the hand on my knee. “Hey. Come down here.”

He went willingly, settling into the cradle of my hips and into the arms I had opened for him as his lips sought out the reassurance of another kiss. When he broke it, he rested his forehead against mine as his hips slipped forward of their own accord, and I reached down to guide him into me. 

The groan that left him was the single most erotic thing I had ever heard. I relaxed for him, trying to remain as still as I could as he slid slowly in. I hadn’t given much thought to his size amidst the concern of reassurance, but it was noticeable as I shifted my hips to adjust to it. I couldn’t help the contraction in my stomach muscles as he grazed a particularly tender spot, and he gripped the sheets beside my head. 

When I felt his pelvis settle against me, I chanced a minute movement in my core muscles, and relished in the soft groan as he adjusted to the sensation. 

“You okay?” I whispered, reaching up to push his hair off his forehead. 

“Yeah,” he managed, lifting up slightly until he was balanced on his hands, his weight settling forward and onto me. “What does it feel like?” 

I almost laughed, Spencer Reid, the perpetual scientist. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?”

“I don’t know that I can manage words right now,” he confessed, huffing out a shaky laugh. 

“It feels good. It’s a pressure more than a pointed sensation,” I elaborated, watching as his body relaxed at the sound of my words. “A sense of being full.” 

He chanced a shallow thrust, and the sensation increased as he shuddered a breath out above me. I let out a soft groan as I flexed my core around him, clenching just slightly enough to give him a change in the resistance. 

“Fuu-“ he began, swallowing the rest of it. I reached up to press my hand lightly against my clit, making the same soft circular movements as he had. 

“The rhythm is the important part,” I whispered, my voice thicker with arousal. His head dropped to watch my hand between our stomachs, feeling the reciprocal pressure against his groin by my knuckles as the pads of my fingers worked against my clit. “It feels good when you’re in a steady rhythm - fast or slow.” 

“Is this good?” Spencer murmured, his voice cracking slightly under the strain of trying to control it, his eyes back on my face. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“So good,” I gasped, chancing a faster speed against my clit as my abdomen began to flex under the stimulation. “Need you.” I’d meant generally, but Spencer’s eyes flashed with purpose as he sat up, catching one of my legs and draping it over his upper arm as his other hand dropped back to my clit. “Shit,” I managed, as his fingers found my rhythm. My core clenched down on him as his fingers pulsed, and it sent his eyes rolling back. He choked out my name, and his hips lost the steadiness of his rhythm. 

I pushed his hand off my clit, and tugged gently on his arm, letting him lean into my stretched leg as I flexed my hips up to meet his - encouraging him with soft words and increasing the squeezes through my core. He obliged, tilting his head back in an open groan as his hips thrust faster, harder into me. 

“Yes,” I whispered, “yes, yes Spe...more. Please more.” 

I could feel the dedication in his thrusts, trying to keep the even rhythm I’d encouraged, but I reached my hands down to his hips, pulling them faster against me. 

“Come for me.” I whispered, and watched the strain in his face even as his eyes were barely open. “I want to see you.” 

His mouth opened in a rictus of a groan, the cords in his neck flexing as he thrust once more and then buried his hips against mine as I felt him jerk inside me, spilling into the condom and burying his face into the side of my neck and groaning into the damp tendrils of my baby hairs. He tried to hold himself up, but I knocked his arm and pulled him down onto me. He was heavy, but his weight was comforting, and the exertion of his breaths against my breast was strangely soothing as I drifted, carding my fingers absently through his hair. 

I’d never heard Spencer so quiet, and it occurred to me that he was probably thinking the same thing. 

“Are you okay?” I asked, shifting against him. He was still inside me, a fact that neither of us seemed bothered by. It was comforting, to be completely surrounded by Spencer Reid. 

“I’m floating,” he mumbled into my chest, and I couldn’t help the snort of delighted laughter. He turned his head to place a kiss against my breastbone, a familiar, comfortable action as he propped his chin up to face me. Conscious that it wasn’t a particularly attractive angle, I turned my head away. It proved to be entirely the wrong thing to do. Spencer sat up, misreading my vanity as rejection, slipping out of me too quickly as he did so and I couldn’t help the wince. 

“Sorry,” he stuttered, pulling the condom off and tossing it into the bin while scrabbling on the floor for his underwear with the other hand, pulling them up over his ass before I could stop him. “I should go…”

“Spencer,” I said, pushing myself upright and laying a soft hand on his arm. “This is your room.” 

“It’s fine, I’ll go to the library - I need to work on…” 

“Spencer.” My tone brooked no argument. “Sit back down.” 

He dropped, as though his bones were made of lead, sinking into the thin mattress with his shoulders slumped. “Look at me,” I said, curling against his shoulder. He did so, and I saw the sadness in his face - the natural expectation of rejection and my heart broke. “Talk to me.” 

“What is there to say?” His voice sounded so hollow. 

“Everything. Tell me how you’re feeling.” 

“I don’t know how I’m feeling,” he replied honestly. “I hurt you, and…”

“You didn’t hurt me,” I interjected. “It’s sensitive when you pull out, that’s all. Same as it is for you.” 

“I don’t know how to do any of this. Not sex, not everything that comes after…” he trailed off, noticing my involuntary shiver as the sweat began to cool on my skin and the breeze lifted from the window. He reached down and pulled the comforter up over my shoulders. I pulled my knees up to rest on his thigh, and pulled his arm onto my lap, opening his palm to me and tracing a soothing pattern along the soft skin of his wrist. It was grounding, for him and for me. 

When I felt him relax beside me, I opened an arm and let him fall against my shoulder, resting his head against mine. “How are you feeling now?” 

“Tired,” he admitted. 

“Can I sleep here?” I asked, surprising myself. I didn’t sleep with boys. I got what I needed and left. But with Spencer - I just wanted to stay close to him for as long as I could. 

He sounded shocked as he blurted “do you want to?” without thinking. 

I sensed that he needed honesty rather than deflecting humour, so I plumped for a simple “yes.” His eyes looked so hopeful at the idea that I couldn’t help the uncharacteristically self-conscious smile. 

He slid back, tucking his legs into the comforter and tucking himself into the corner of the bed, leaving a solid two thirds for me. 

“I’m just going to go clean up,” I said, waving my hand in the general direction of the bathroom. Spencer blanched. 

“I’m supposed to…” he began, and I melted. But right now, I just wanted to pee. 

“Hey,” I said, pressing a kiss to his protesting lips. “There is no ‘supposed to’ in this bed. It’s you, and me, and we decide what we do. Next time, yes. This time, I’m okay. I’ll be right back.” 

When I clicked off the bathroom light and slipped back into Spencer’s room, he was curled up on his side, his arm outstretched over the waiting space for me to slip in beside him. Even in sleep, he was making room for me. I hesitated, fidgeting with the seam of the underwear I’d just pulled back on. Could I crawl into bed with him? Could I put aside all my carefully constructed rules, tear down those walls just enough to sleep soundly in Spencer’s arms for one night?

I picked up my shirt and skirt from the floor, and threw them on. I didn’t bother with my bra, sliding it into my purse instead and slipped the chain over my shoulder, holding it taut so it wouldn’t jangle. I chanced one look back - and realised my mistake. 

It wasn’t my walls that needed to come down. Spencer didn’t need any part of me, he just needed someone. I could be that someone, for tonight. I set my purse back onto the dresser and unzipped my skirt again. 

It felt strange, climbing into bed with him. He sighed in his sleep as the mattress dipped under my weight, sliding me against his body. I tucked myself into his side, curling into the arm he’d left outstretched for me and took a deep breath, inhaling the soft scent of laundry detergent and fading aftershave, pitted against the primal cousins of sex and sweat. Oddly, it relaxed me, and I felt myself drift as I settled into the sheets, just as Spencer’s other arm wrapped around my waist. 

“I’m glad you didn’t go,” he mumbled. 

“I didn’t realise you were awake,” I said quietly. “I don’t usually...stay.” 

“But you stayed with me,” he said, and my heart broke for the note of pride in his voice. I wasn’t going to break his. 

“Go to sleep, Spencer.” 

He pressed a sleepy kiss into my hair, and I felt his breathing even out against my back. 

I had done a terrible thing. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this started as a tiny, little, completely PWP one-shot with no follow through, and grew into this complete monstrosity. I don’t even know. I have a writing gremlin in my brain that just goes off at like 2am, and I’m just along for the fuckin’ ride. 
> 
> A note on (Y/N), Y/N, and variants thereof - I don’t personally like using them in my writing. I keep the OC generally quite generic, but I do give names for use in the text because I think using Y/N disjoints slightly. I do thoroughly enjoy reading fics that use them, but I personally don’t. If you want to copy into a Google Doc, and replace with your preferred name, please do. 
> 
> I envisage this having about four parts - two for each time period. But as per the gremlin disclaimer above - she is very much in control of the writing, and I generally have no idea.
> 
> Cross-posted on my Tumblr (ongoingcrisismsc) as soon as I can figure out how to do so.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some brutal truths, some insight, and a glimmer of hope.

I left before he woke up, slipping out into the early morning air before even the hardiest of campus joggers were up. It was an asshole move, but I’d been too careless last night. I didn’t sleep with boys. I didn’t stick around long enough to give the impression that they were anything more than a quick fuck. 

He seemed to leave them alone if I did. 

But, true to form, when I got back to my dorm, a powder blue envelope was sitting on my bed, face down. Rachel was asleep in her bed, but stirred as the door clicked closed behind me. 

“Sorry,” I murmured, and noted her puffy eyes and the track marks on her face. I sat down on her bed and placed my hand on her hair, stroking the soft curls in a way I desperately hoped was reassuring. “Did it come last night?” 

She nodded tiredly. “It was in our pigeon hole when I got in.” 

I picked it up, and tossed it in the drawer with the rest of them. Rachel sat up. “Aren’t you going to read it?” she asked.

“It won’t say anything different to all the others,” I said, exhausted despite the relatively peaceful night’s sleep I’d just enjoyed, wrapped in Spencer’s arms. 

“Was he worth it?” Rachel asked, pointedly.

I nodded sadly. “He was sweet. I liked him.” 

It was the wrong thing to say - Rachel’s eyes welled up, and I saw her begin to come apart. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” I said, jumping in before the tears started. “It is what it is. The guy last night will find another girl to hook up with, and hey, maybe he,” i nodded at the lockbox full of envelopes, “will fall under a bus, or have a heart attack, or just up and fucking die and I’ll never get another letter. Then I can do whatever I want.” 

“And what, we just wait until then?” Rachel asked. “What happens if you meet another guy like Chris? Someone you can’t give up, someone you love - properly, really love, and what happened to Chris happens to him?” 

I looked at her. There wasn’t even sadness in my expression any more, just resignation, which seemed to hurt her more. 

“There’s got to be something,” Rachel whispered. 

“How many times have we gone down to that damn police station?” I reminded her sharply. “How many times have we had to sit through some asshole detective telling us that they’re love letters, and I can just throw them away if they make me uncomfortable? They lost the batch about Chris that we gave them as evidence.” 

Rachel had no response to my cold, hard truth. 

“They said what happened to Chris was a carjacking gone wrong. He was in the wrong place, in a too-expensive car, according to them. No witnesses, no evidence, no case,” I scoffed. “They’re not gonna help me. The other police station said that I was outside of their district and I’d need to go back to the first station, and the university didn’t want to know. The student support officer never called me back.” 

“Forgive me,” Rachel snapped. “I’ve just watched some anonymous freak ruin your life for three years, and I’m kind of sick of it.”

It was now or never. “I got accepted onto the Scholars Program.” I said, forcing the words out in a rush before I could lose my nerve. 

She blinked at me, confused. 

“Study-abroad,” I elaborated, and realisation dawned on her face. “In Edinburgh.” 

“When?” she breathed. 

“Next semester. I took another girl’s place when she dropped out last minute.” 

“In Scotland?” Rachel asked, curious. 

“Yeah - I didn’t have any say in where,” I explained. “But it’s kind of less about the where, and more about the how far.” 

Full clarity dawned on Rachel, and a tentative smile spread over her face. “When did you find out?” she asked.

“Yesterday morning,” I said, sheepishly. 

“Huh,” she said, sitting back against her stuffed animals. “What do you think he’ll do?” 

I deflated a little, processing through the scenarios I’d spent weeks agonising about as I debated which ones to share.

Rachel arched an eyebrow, reading the look on my face, and answered for me. “He could give up on you entirely. Fairly unlikely, given what happened to Chris. He could carry on stalking you from here. Probably will. Or, if he’s truly a freak - he’ll follow you to Scotland.” 

I gave her a nervous smile. “Do you think the Scottish cops will be any more interested than Pasadena PD?” 

“Maybe,” she considered. “If he follows you to Scotland though - what if he hurts you there?” 

I shrugged, trying to remain nonchalant as her words snagged on a painful nerve. “We’ve been living the last two and a half years wondering if he’s going to do that. I need to do something different, something that moves my life forward. And frankly,” I said, biting down on the bitterness in my words, “if he ever shows his face after the hell he’s made my life - I’m not going down easy.”

*

When Rachel was asleep again, I slipped over to the drawer and removed the top letter - slitting open the top of the letter and pulling out the neatly folded paper. 

_My beloved,_

_I was sorry to hear that you were having difficulties with your studies. While I admire your wit, and your extraordinary intelligence, I refer to my letter of the 28th of Feb, whereupon I reminded you once again that I would be in a position to take care of you should you wish to no longer continue your studies. You need only ask. Women’s minds are magnificent artifacts, but their charm, gracious submission, and good character are their most comely features._

_I was disappointed to see you engaging with a Dr. S. Reid, PhD, at such late hours on Monday night. It’s not appropriate for a woman to be in the company of a man so late at night, and without the moral guidance of a chaperone. I know this vice is a particular struggle of yours, my darling, and I have chastised you in the past for your provocative behaviours towards young men._

I gagged softly. It was a fairly vanilla letter in comparison to when he was angry at me, but he had a particular knack when he was being soft of using his words to make my skin crawl. 

_But I must remind myself that you are but a young and silly girl, brought up in a world of sin and shame, where the act of giving yourself is no longer a sacred act, but a tool of false empowerment to trick you into believing that you have command over your fate and destiny. I do not think you dirtied, or damaged by your conduct - I remind myself that you remain spiritually mine, and I shall restore you to your glory once you become mine._

_My darling, please consider my words as acts of benevolent love, sent to remind you of your place in this world. You are mine, and I await your return with blissful anticipation._

_Yours,_

As always, it was unsigned. 

I let my head fall back against the wall. At least he wasn’t overtly threatening Spencer - sticking to an old favourite of reminding me of my sinful disobedience. That said, the letter had probably been written before I’d taken Spencer to bed, so I could probably expect another letter shortly, and the next would be downright vitriolic. He was usually in a mood for a month after I slept with someone, two or three if it was a repeater. There would then be an apology letter, and the cycle would begin again. In the beginning, I’d rebelled - sleeping with anyone I chose, and tossing the letters in the trash in public places, hoping that he was watching. I even tore up one letter into neat squares, rolled it up, filled it, and smoked it on the steps of the library. He’d hated that. 

I closed my eyes. I thought of the letters in the fall when I’d begun to date Chris. I’d been so deliberate in everything, holding his hand as we walked to class, sitting in the window on coffee dates, kissing him in the park with our hands roving all over one another. I’m not scared of you, I had been trying to say, in my naive, stupid way. And I did like Chris. He was kind, dorky, dozy in the way only a lacrosse player with several concussions could be, and as considerate as one could reasonably expect a nineteen year old boy to be. I liked him. In time, it might have been more. 

But my declarations of fearlessness, he’d read as challenges to his authority. And the glimmering hope of something normal, something pure and precious and mine had gone out with the candles at his memorial service. 

Spencer, that gentle soul who had brushed against my heart, would not be next. I would take his heart and shatter it like a Millikan Library frozen pumpkin before I’d let him touch my Spencer. 

I crumpled the letter and shoved it into the drawer, locking it and slipping the key back into my pocket, before slinging my backpack over my shoulder. I had eight days before the end of the semester. Time to wangle an earlier finish date, and a flight to Europe as soon as possible. 

But first, I needed to speak to Spencer. 

*

“He’s gone,” the postgrad told me, apologetically. “He had a family emergency, back in Vegas. I’m covering his last few classes before the semester ends for the holidays.”

“Oh,” I said, startled. Normally it was me pulling a disappearing act on someone, this was a new experience. The realisation dawned, and panic gripped my stomach. “You’re sure? He definitely got to Vegas okay?” 

The postgrad looked at me, now utterly bewildered. “Uh, yeah. I dropped him at the airport - he doesn’t have a car. And he called in yesterday to let us know that he’d need to stay for longer than expec-“ he hesitated, suddenly realising the contents of his babbling. 

“That’s okay. Listen, I’m not here next semester. If I leave a note with you, could you make sure it gets to him?”

“Oh,” he began, “you can leave it in his pigeonhole…”

“I don’t really like pigeonholes,” I said, keeping my voice light and even, “people are always knocking my post out of mine. Can I leave it with you?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

I took his details, and promised to drop it off by the end of the day. By the time I got back to the Economics  
department, the administrative team had approved my earlier departure. I had no finals left to take, and my final lectures weren’t compulsory. They had agreed to my proposal to travel to Switzerland for a World Economic Forum event with only minimal protestation, and Mel had promised to speak to them. I told her I’d type up my Game Theory paper and proof over the holidays and send it from Switzerland. To my enormous relief, she agreed. Barely suppressing a whoop of joy, I logged onto one of the computers in the student area and booked a flight to Geneva, departing in forty-seven hours. 

They passed in a whirlwind of packing, tears (mostly from Rachel, despite my protestations that I’d be back next semester), and frantically sorting out the logistics of a complete move to another country in less than two days. Between us, we managed it. 

The tears of relief Rachel had shed were not wholly for the fact of our accomplishment. She felt, far more strongly than I did, that this represented a new chance for me - a fresh start without a perennial pair of unseen eyes watching my every move. 

I wasn’t so sure. 

I only showed Rachel the softer letters - the ones where violence was implied, rather than explicit. I kept her safe from the violent, rage-filled fantasies that tore through the thin paper with the pressure of his vehement fury. I’d take them into the bathroom, so I could throw up after reading - and kept them in a locked box under my bed. In a fit of terrified pique, I’d written ‘to be opened in the event of my death’ on the top. 

I had no idea how he was going to react to me slipping away in the dead of the night. Maybe I’d get to Edinburgh, and see that little blue envelope waiting in my pigeonhole there. Maybe I’d never hear from him again. Or maybe the tangible proof of my rejection - running away to a city thousands of miles away would be enough to push him over the edge. I thought about this eventuality, and was stunned by the peace I felt towards it. 

Perhaps it was the hope that Europe promised, perhaps it was the act of finally choosing something for myself without keeping him at the back of my mind, but I decided that I didn’t care. If we wanted time, he’d have to get me, and I was not going down without a fight. 

That said, it was time to say goodbye to Spencer. I needed him to close the page on me, and move on. I was an asshole for sleeping with him, but I wouldn’t put him in danger. I scribbled out a note of my own, telling him that I was going abroad for a semester, thanking him for his help with the project, and wishing him well for the future. It was valid, impersonal, and asshole enough that I hoped it would sully his opinion of me forever. I signed it, and sealed it into an envelope, and dropped it off with the postgrad at the Mathematics department. 

As the plane finally took off into the late evening sky, I watched the lights fade into tiny twinkles, and I settled back into my seat, clutching my hold-all on my lap. Caltech had represented so much hope three years ago. Now, I just wanted to be anywhere else in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay...so it’s going to have more than four chapters. Fine.


	3. Chapter 3

Spencer

  


May, 2020

  


I scrubbed at my eyes, exhausted. Across the table, JJ yawned, rolling out her shoulders in a series of loud, uncomfortable cracks.

“They’re just...so…” Tara began, and her voice trailed off.

“Bizarre,” Emily agreed.

I looked down at the mass of blue letters spread out over the conference table. Bizarre was probably the right word for it. They flip-flopped from creepy obsessive love, to threats, back to obsession, to blistering rage, and then dropped incongruously into carefully constructed poetry, and then resumed normal service with threats. The dates on the top right hand corner were split by time, rather than days - March 23rd, 18:32, March 23rd, 23:12, March 24th, 02:37… this was an obsession that had come up quickly, and aggressively - consuming every waking moment for the unsub.

“And the mother said that she had no idea?” JJ’s tone was incredulous. “All of this, and she never said anything, to anyone?”

Tara glanced up. “The mom said she was shy, and that they weren’t close. She’d been excited about going to college, but then dropped off of the radar. Is there any letter where he intimidates her into not saying anything?”

They glanced at me, and I shook my head. “The first letter, when he’s telling her that he’s her secret admirer asks her to ‘hold him in her heart, and keep him for her eyes only’ but nothing that overtly threatens her not to report them.”

“Fifty-eight letters, written over the course of two months, she never says a word - not even to her roommate, and she disappears at the end.” Emily surmised. “What does the last letter say?”

“‘ _For the time we have been apart, I can no longer endure. I must have you, even if I must use another_.’” I recited.

JJ blinked. “Does that sound...like he’s not talking to her?”

We turned to her, and she reached for the letter I’d left on the top of the file.

“‘ _For I have told you of your fate, and your destiny to be mine, and you have denied me for all of these years. You have spurned my love as I have sought to help you grow to the light of our unbreakable bond and shunned me as I have courted you most diligently, most ardently. The decades you have thrown at my feet in hateful condemnation of the inevitable shall be so no longer. For my love, my angel, is everlasting, and I shall have you in my eternal kingdom - in this life, and the hereafter_.’” JJ looked at us. “He’s talking in decades - Katy’s only eighteen. I don’t think he’s talking to her in these letters.” 

“It’s got religious allegory,” Tara mused, “-could be a manifestation of a religious icon - maybe the Virgin Mary?”

“I don’t think so,” Emily disagreed, “Mary is the Mother - not the lover. This has sexual connotations, marital even.”

“He could be talking about an ex-wife, or a girlfriend? Even a crush who didn’t return his affection?” I offered. “‘I have courted you, that’s a marriage proposal lead up.”

“Maybe he wrote love letters to her on the same stationery,” Emily said, glancing down at the powder blue letter adorned with indigo ink in sweeping, neat handwriting. “It’s distinctive. Could we release it to the press - see if anyone recognises it?”

“Maybe just the envelope,” I said. “We don’t know how he’d react - if he considers the letters ...private.”

“Ok,” Emily said, glancing down at the desk. “Let’s get a release prepared for limited broadcast and see if we get any responses recognising that envelope. In the meantime, I’m sending Simmons and Alvez back to NYU to search Katy’s dorm again. Tara - you go through the letters, see if you can pull out any clues he gives about himself. Possible ages, physical descriptors, languages spoken, anything.”

“Do you want me to help?” I offered, and Tara shot me a relieved look. The clues wouldn’t be an issue, but the letters were mentally draining to read.

As JJ and Emily left us to the deserted conference room, I flicked open the blinds to look out on the lights of Manhattan’s West Village. The flashing blue lights of the squad cars driving in and out of the precinct were dizzying, and I blinked a few times to reacclimatise.

“Coffee?” Tara asked, and I gave her a grateful nod. She set two cups down on the table, and I sat down in front of the one she’d poured half the sugar cellar into, pulling early March’s letters towards me.

“This poor girl,” she said softly. “Just trying to enjoy college life and she has to endure this.” I grimaced my agreement as I flicked through the letters. “I just can’t work out why she wouldn’t say anything to anyone. Some of them are creepily loving, but others are threatening.”

“Maybe she didn’t know where to turn,” I said. “Small town to a big city - maybe she felt lost.”

“I feel that,” Tara reminisced. “Dartmouth seemed impossibly big in my freshman year.”

“I think my perception of how big campus was kinda skewed by my size at the time,” I joked.

Tara snorted as she began making notes from the April 2nd letters, and then blinked at the page suddenly. “Did we find out if she had a boyfriend?”

“Her roommate said that Katy never brought guys back to the room, and she didn’t stay out anywhere. So, no?”

“Huh,” Tara said. “Maybe you were right about the letters not being to Katy.” She tapped the page, and I tilted my head to read it.

“‘ _For I cannot control myself when I see you in another man’s embrace. It burns an eviscerating rage, that this unworthy creature may lay his hands upon you, and I above am condemned to know only the ghostly imaginings of your touch. Fear not, my darling, for the only harm that shall come to you when you scurry away in the early morn from his bed shall be from me in accordance to my divine right. I shall burn the heart out of you, and out of the unworthy you take into your bed. You have taken wanton sluts of men who have lain with any pretty girl they choose, and innocent men who have fallen at your feet and under your spell, and I shall mete out the rage due to you_.” I frowned. “Doesn’t really sound like our church chorist Katy, huh?”

“I think you might be right,” Tara mused. “I think this is for an unrequited crush. He’s not touched her, which rules out a girlfriend, or wife.”

“ _You have taken innocent men_?” I said, trying the strange phrase out. “As in, taken sex from them or taken out?”

“Innocent makes me think of virgin, I suppose,” Tara said. “Maybe she slept with a few guys, and he’s a possessive-obsessive?”

“He doesn’t see them as challenges to him,” I said, re-reading the phrase again. “He de-personalised them - he doesn’t care about them at all. They’re not a threat to him. The rage is all at her.”

“That creeps me out,” Tara said, tucking April 5th’s seventh letter back into the envelope, and placed a yellow Post-It on the outside, Cliff-Noting the contents. “Imagining some guy watching me if I was making out with someone, or hooking up with them, taking notes for his next letter.”

“Lots of that happening at Dartmouth, was there?” I quipped, noting the ‘ _for you have challenged my authority as your headship, and the rage of God Almighty shall be channelled through me in forgiving your sin through sacrifice of the flesh’_ from March 12th.

“Well...no,” Tara admitted. “Though you were all buried in your computers at Caltech, so I imagine much of the same-same there.” I smiled, keeping my eyes on the page, which Tara took as a challenge. “Or was the great Doctor Reid quite the college lothario once of legal age? The undergrads all throwing themselves at the pretty young doctor?”

“Well, you know...” I said, and shrugged. “No. Probably something about the complete lack of conversation, or the magic tricks. Never wooed a girl like I’d hoped when I was learning them at fourteen.”

Tara snorted, and we lapsed into a comfortable silence - or as comfortable as we could when cataloging the evidence of a violent obsessive who had apparently abducted a completely innocent proxy target - but something about Tara’s words stirred a memory.

_A pretty young doctor. A game of cards. A coffee house date. A night to remember, and a morning after to forget. And a beautiful girl you’d never seen again. _  
I swallowed, and returned to the letters, pushing that particularly painful can of worms back down into the darkest recesses of my mind, where they belonged.__

____

____

_Three Days Later_

I was stirred awake by a jackhammering buzzing against my head. I’d fallen asleep on my phone. I reached up a fumbling hand to swipe across the screen to answer.

“Spence?”

“Hey JJ,” I said, swiping a hand against my tearducts to clear the sleep, shifting against the uncomfortable hotel sheets. “What’s up?”

“We’ve got a lead. I know you were up late again last night, but Prentiss and I are at NYU talking to the roommate, and they’re setting up a video conference with the lead at the precinct in an hour.”

“I’ll go now,” I told her, swinging my legs out of bed and fumbling around one-handedly in my bag for underwear.

She wished me luck with the lead, and hung up as I stepped into the bathroom to clean up a little, scratching my hand over my stubble as I clicked my toothbrush on in my mouth, using a comb to tidy up the worst of the bedhead.

My sleep had been an uneasy one - more so than usual in a hotel bed. Thoughts, and memories of a night almost eighteen years ago had flickered through my head, until I had forced them from my mind by reciting the contents of the letters until my brain cried out to escape and lapsed into a dreamless sleep.

Tara met me at the precinct, looking as drained as I felt, but apparently had had sufficient presence of mind to have swiped us two takeout coffees on the way. I took mine guiltily, and made a mental note to buy lunch later.

The liaison detective - Suarez, retrieved us from the bullpen and led us down the hall and into another conference room - smaller than before, but dominated by a large screen set up with a webcam. The link showed what looked like an interview room, and a woman sitting patiently with an officer beside her, an LAPD badge around his neck.

“Detective Molina,” Suarez greeted as we took our seats, and the figures on the screen looked up at the webcam. Molina leaned forward to click something on his side to unmute their side of the connection.

“Can you hear us ok?” he asked, and we nodded.

“Dr. Lewis, and Dr. Reid with the FBI’s Behavioural Analysis Unit,” Suarez said, by way of an introduction.

“Detective Molina,” he identified, fairly redundantly, “and Rachel Moore.” We nodded at each other, and then Suarez gestured at Molina to continue, but Rachel appeared frustrated by this pantomime, and cut in.

“I saw your press release on Twitter. The blue envelope?”

“Twitter?” Suarez asked, suspiciously.

“I listen to crime podcasts, and I’m on a couple of unsolved mystery threads. It popped up.” She waved us all off. “There was nothing about what it was linked to at all, so I guess when I told the FBI’s tip line that it was probably linked to a stalker who has a weirdly omniscient knowledge which he uses to write creepy letters that talk about God and his divine right, they wanted you to talk to me.”

We blinked at her, stunned.

“How do you -” Tara began, but Rachel waved her off.

“Before anything else,” her voice was imploring, and tense with fear. “Is Anya okay?”

My stomach plummeted, and I felt that eerie feeling when a recollection stirs a thought of a person before they suddenly come back into your life. It’s a common name, I tried to think. The chance of it being the same person is infinitesimal.

“Who is Anya?” Tara asked, confused. Don’t say it, don’t say it...I thought, pleading with anyone benevolent enough to listen. Rachel blinked at her, bemused.

“Anya Liuken. The woman he writes the letters to. The woman he’s been stalking all these years.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. The blood drained out of my face, and I pressed my knuckles into the desk, trying to quiet my roiling stomach.

_Innocent men._

__

__

_A soft voice: “You’ve not done this before.”_


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer and Tara meet Rachel, who has some truths to hit squarely home.

Tara shot me a look, but I tried to remain professional even as I straightened up and tried to school my face into an expressionless mask.

“That’s not a name that’s come up in our enquiries. You say she’s the person he writes to in these letters?”

Rachel frowned, now confused. “These are her letters, aren’t they? How can her name not have come up?”

Tara glanced at me, and I nodded. “These letters are for someone else. Can you tell me how you recognised them?” 

Rachel’s face had dropped, stunned. “You mean he stopped? He chose someone else?” 

“Rachel? Can you tell me what you know about these letters?” 

Recognising that she wasn’t going to get anything out of Tara, Rachel pressed her knuckle to her eye, as if quelling a headache, and took a deep, shaky breath.  
“Anya was my roommate in college,” she began, in a soft voice. “Our freshman year, maybe a month into the first semester, Anya got a letter in a blue envelope in her pigeonhole.”

“When was this?” Tara asked, her pen scratching across the pad. 

“‘99.” Rachel replied. 

“Was this here in New York?” Tara asked. 

“No. We were at Caltech. This was Pasadena.” 

There was no doubting it now.

“Sorry, Rachel, can we have a second?” I cut in. Tara and Suarez blinked at me, bewildered, but Suarez reached forward to pause the camera and mic. I took a deep, steadying breath. “I knew Anya Liuken.” They stared at me, wide eyed. “I helped her with a paper once, and we uh, we met a couple of times.” 

“Around then?” Tara asked, pointedly. I nodded. “Did you know anything about it?” 

“No, of course not.” I said, forcefully. “Even back then, I would’ve… helped her. Somehow.” 

Tara met my gaze. “Did you know Rachel?”

“I knew Anya for about a week, and then never saw her again.” I explained. “It wasn’t a close thing.” This was both a lie, and a painful truth at the same time, and I felt the bitterness of it slide over my tongue, even as the words came out perfectly emotionless. 

“Ok,” she said. “I’ll question. You observe only.” 

Suarez, at Tara’s nod, switched the connection back up.

“Sorry, Rachel,” Tara apologised. “You were saying that you were at Caltech. Did you see the first letter?” 

“Yeah. Anya showed it to me. We thought it was weird, but sweet. The first ones weren’t violent, or angry. We thought it was just a shy college guy who didn’t know how to ask her out.” 

“Do you remember what it said?” 

“It was like an old fashioned love letter. I don’t remember exactly but it was something like ‘loving her from afar,’” she paused. “It had a blank sheet of pink paper tucked inside that she could reply on - to return his affections.” 

I noted down the significance. 

“Did she reply?”

“No.” Rachel’s voice was firm. “Anya didn’t want to lead him on. I thought she should, you know, say thank you, but no thank you?” 

“She didn’t think so?”

“She was a little creeped out by the letters. They talked about where she was, described what she was wearing on a given day. She thought that by writing back, she’d encourage him.” Rachel sighed. “I didn’t really understand the concept of stalking back then. I was fairly sheltered when I came to college.”

Tara nodded, and changed tack. “You said the first ones were sweet? When did they stop being sweet?” 

“Anya dated a couple of guys in the first fall - you know, all casual. College rite of passage, coming back to a tie on the doorknob, right?” 

Church chorist Katy, ordinary college girl Anya, I found myself writing before I could stop myself. 

“They were nice guys,” Rachel continued. “Caltech doesn’t have a Greek system, but the House guys were our equivalent of frats. Anya met Chris at a party just before the holidays.”

“A boyfriend?”

“Yeah. When they came back after the holidays, they started dating properly. He introduced me to my boyfriend - it was great. We had double dates at steakhouses and all that cheesy stuff. Chris had a car, so we’d drive down on the weekends and go to the beach. It was just a normal life.” Rachel’s face shadowed. “But the letters kept coming, and they started getting more angry.” 

“About her dating?” 

“Yeah,” Rachel replied. “He started saying things like she was ‘spurning’ his love. That he’d stop at nothing to make her realise her love for him.” 

“Did she show Chris?” 

“No, she didn’t want him to think that it was weird.” Rachel sounded choked. “I think she loved him. Or was going to end up loving him eventually. She started tearing up and throwing the letters in the trash cans on campus - where he...the stalker could see.” 

“How did he react?” 

“More violently,” Rachel exhaled tightly. “She was angry that he was inserting himself into her life - making her lie to Chris about what was bothering her. She stopped  
opening the letters.” 

I could sense the build up to something painful, as Rachel took a couple of steadying breaths. Tara let her work up to it, holding her question until Rachel looked back at us. 

“And then one night, Anya got a call from Scott, Chris’ friend.” A long pause. “He said that Chris had been driving back from a Lakers game he’d been at with a friend from UCLA, and he’d stopped at a gas station on the edge of town. The police said it was a carjacking gone wrong, but Anya knew that it wasn’t.” 

“What did she do?”

“She went to the police that night. Took all the letters she had, and told them that this was her stalker and she was certain that he was responsible for Chris’ death.” I could hear the acridity in her voice, and I glanced down at my notes, preparing myself.

“They told her that it was a carjacking. That Chris was in the wrong place, too late at night, and in a too-expensive car. They read maybe two of the letters, and said that they were love letters from a secret admirer, not a violent attacker. She begged them to read the rest, so they took them for evidence and said they’d look into them. Then, when she hadn't heard anything a week later, she called, and they told her that they had no record of them being booked into evidence. Was she sure that she hadn’t taken them with her?” Both police officers shifted in their seats, and I was relieved to see anger in their faces. Perhaps something had changed in twenty years. 

“Did she try anything else?”

“Yeah, she pushed for weeks - but she didn’t have the letters. And he watched her, so he knew she was trying to go to the police, so didn’t send anything she could use. The ones he sent were vapid - admiring, and the police kept turning her away. Eventually one of the detectives threatened to book her for wasting police time, so she gave up.” 

“The letters didn’t stop?” Tara asked quietly, and Rachel’s anger settled into a hurt. 

“No. Most weeks she’d get two or three. She kept opening them, but then she’d just store them in a drawer in our room.”

“She didn’t report them?”

“She’d burned her bridges with Pasadena PD. She tried LAPD, but they said it was a PPD matter.” Detective Molina looked down at this, almost shamefaced. “She tried to tell them that Pasadena had ignored her, and lost evidence, so they called the precinct who told LAPD that she’d been cautioned against wasting police time. It was a lie, she’d only been warned, but that was it. They wouldn’t help.” 

I felt a pit of anger stirring in my gut. I imagined the Anya I knew, trying to fight for her safety, only to be ignored by the people who had taken oaths to protect her. 

“The letters got worse when she gave up on the police. She tried reporting it to the university, but they said it was a private matter. She could just throw the letters away if she was so concerned. She tried going round the printing shops, looking for the blue paper, seeing if any of the store clerks recognised it, but they didn’t.”  
Tara and I shared a look at the evidence of impressive lateral thinking on the part of a college student. 

“And then,” Rachel continued, “she just… gave up. The letters kept coming, and she’d open them in the bathroom with the taps running so I couldn’t hear her throw up after reading. She’d never let me read those ones, so I think they were probably graphic. I read one by accident once.” She shuddered. “I have no idea how she coped. I could barely cope and they weren’t even directed at me.” 

“Did either of you report it to your parents?” 

“My parents were undocumented back then. I was too afraid for them if they went near the police,” Rachel explained, frankly. “And Anya and her mom weren’t close at all. I don’t think she was a stable part of Anya’s life. She was at Caltech on a scholarship that paid for tuition and housing, same as me.” 

“So Anya just...carried on?”

“She tried to be as normal as she could,” Rachel explained. “She’d go to her classes, and to parties. She’d even go home with guys sometimes. But she’d always leave - she’d never stay, just in case he got the wrong idea.” 

I felt like an ice knife had been dug between my ribs at her words, as I remembered the figure wriggling into her clothes in the dark, the jangle of her purse as she drew it off the bedside table, trying not to wake me from what she assumed was my sleep. She’d stayed with me, and had disappeared before morning. 

“The letters after she slept with someone were always the most violent. She never let me read those. But she said that she wanted touch, and she wanted a little trace of love in her life, and he wouldn’t take that from her - no matter what he did. But she never got close to anyone again - even girlfriends. Even me - she’d never walk across campus with me, even though we slept int the same room. She was always alone.” 

“The letters never stopped? Do you know if they continued after graduation?”

“No, they didn’t stop. But in our junior year, Anya got accepted for the Scholars Program. She’d been saving money from her job, and applying to international Economics scholarships for funding, and a place opened up on a course in Edinburgh. It was supposed to be a semester, but then it extended into a full year. She managed to get in with an International Economics society in London while she was there, and they applied on her behalf for her senior year to be by correspondence so she could intern at the WEF.” Rachel smiled, proudly. “Even in spite of everything, she worked so hard for that. Got a job after she was awarded her degree, and then she stayed in Europe for a few years.” 

“So she didn’t come back to Caltech?” Tara asked

“No. I haven’t seen her in person since she left. We’ve talked on the phone a few times, but I think she was always wary that the call was bugged, so she’d never say much. Just pleasantries and ‘how are you doing,’ and she sent a card and flowers when my son was born. We exchange emails now and again. I haven’t heard from her in a year or so now.” 

I glanced at Tara, who nodded. 

“Did she say that the letters stopped when she moved to Europe?” I asked. 

“She didn’t say anything when I asked. Just a long silence on the phone, and then she changed the subject. So, I think not.” 

“Do you know where she’s living now?” 

“No,” Rachel answered, hollowly. “I sent her an email asking if she was okay when I saw the post, and I tried to call the number we last spoke on but it was disconnected. Although -the last time we spoke on the phone, it was an American cell number.”

“That’s useful,” Tara said appreciatively. “Did she say if she was married, or had changed her name?”

“No. But given how dedicated she is at keeping the person who knows the truth at arm’s length, do you think she would have trusted someone enough to marry them? As for changing her name, what would be the point: he followed her to Europe. You think he can’t find a Deed Poll?” 

“Thank you, Rachel,” Tara said. “Detective Molina, could you take a full witness statement for us?” 

He nodded, but Rachel cut in, and I could hear the bitter anger in her tone. 

“You’re looking for someone else. That’s why you didn’t know about Anya.” It was flat - a statement of fact. “Even after all this time, it still wasn’t Anya. So he’s stalked someone else - maybe he’s killed her, given that the FBI are involved now. And if you had just listened to her twenty years ago, none of this would be happening and Anya could have had a normal life. She could have come to my wedding, to my baby shower like a normal college friend. She could have had her own for me to attend. So I hope you find her, safe and well, and maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the letters did stop. But if they didn’t, and she’s been living in that hell for all this time - the first thing out of your mouth when she opens the door had better be an apology. You people failed her.” 

With that, Rachel reached forward and the screen tilted to a blurred keyboard and then to black as she slammed the lid of the laptop closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Material witness whatttt? I don't know her.
> 
> Please do leave a comment - would love to hear what you think.
> 
> Writing like this, and sustaining a story over a long period of chapters needs a bit of reassurance that I'm not just screaming into the void!
> 
> And for those after my own heart - more smut is coming. The faster I write, the faster it comes (pun intended), and the way to get me to write fast is to give me the sweet payment of comments! 
> 
> Thank you to those who are sticking through the desert of interviews with me. Gotta do the setup for the payoff!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A man meets a woman, again.

Wednesday had passed in an indifferent blur, much like every other Wednesday before it.

The barista had put an extra shot in my morning coffee, and I’d shot her a grateful look and dropped a dollar into her tip jar. A man had walked directly into me getting off the subway, almost knocking me flat on my ass and had walked off without a word. I’d been vindicated in a week-long argument when a stock turned the way I’d insisted it would at the beginning of the week. The bodega had put the price up on organic bananas. A mixed bag of a day. 

It ceased to be an ordinary day the moment I’d rounded the corner and found two people standing outside my apartment door. The suits, the air of suspicion, and the holsters were enough to tell me that they were cops. The woman offered a smile, but the expressionless face on the other almost knocked me off my feet.

Spencer Reid, as I live and breathe. He was as beautiful as the night I’d left him in his bed, the flushed lips, the arch of his cheekbone, those sweet, soft eyes. The night I’d left him in his bed and disappeared forever.

I tightened my grip on the paper grocery bag in my arms, as if I wanted to shrink behind it. 

“Anya Liuken?” The woman’s question was redundant - Spencer had made me the second I’d come into sight. I hadn’t changed much in the years that had passed - my hair was a little shorter, my clothes a little nicer, my soul a little more bitter. Comparatively, he had had a complete sea-change. My eyes roved over the slight curl to his hair, the attractive line of stubble dotting that pretty little face, the nicely tailored suit...the wooden stock of the gun strapped to his belt.

Spencer Reid, a cop? If you’d told me without planting hard evidence smack bang in front of me, I would’ve looked you in the eyes and called you a bare-faced liar. 

They were waiting, the charade that they needed me to confirm what they already knew. “Yes,” I replied.

We stood in uncomfortable silence for a beat, each challenging the other. If they wanted in, they’d have to ask. 

The woman took the bait. “My name’s SSA Jennifer Jareau, and this is Dr. Spencer Reid. We’re with the FBI.” Oh-ho. Not just a cop. A Fed. “We’d like to talk to you about some letters you’ve been receiving. Can we step inside?” 

I shifted the bag again, not moving towards the keys in my pocket. “What does the FBI have to do with this?”

“Can we step inside?” she asked again, but I met the challenge. 

“No.” I said, firmly. “You can either tell me why you’re on my doorstep, or you can come back with a warrant. I’m not inviting any Fed,” I looked pointedly at Spencer, “-into my home unless I know exactly why they’re here.” I was being a jackass, I knew that, but this situation was so out of left field that I was holding on to any semblance of control to hold against the spiral that threatened. 

He met my gaze so unflinchingly I needed to reaffirm that this was definitely Spencer Reid in front of me, and not a clone replacement. “A girl’s gone missing from NYU. We found letters in her dorm from an unknown stalker.” He took a step towards me. “They were written on blue paper with indigo ink. All unsigned.” 

The groceries slipped from my hands, and smashed against the floor. 

*

They’d been kind enough to help me gather the groceries up and carry them inside, even waiting patiently in the living room as I filled a glass with water in the kitchen and gripped the edge of the sink until my hands stopped trembling. But I couldn’t delay them forever. 

When I returned to the living room, they’d arranged their faces into the same insipid sympathy that they probably trained them in at Fed school. I waved them off, and crouched down in front of the old bureau under the window, unlocking it and pulling out each heavy drawer in turn. I looked up and watched their eyes widen at the sheer number of envelopes. 

“He’s been writing to me for twenty years,” I scoffed at their surprise. “What did you think that would look like?” 

“You kept them all?” Agent Jareau asked, bewildered. 

I sighed, slumping against the desk and folding my arms over my chest. “They’re all the proof I have. If something ever happened to me…” 

They glanced from my face, back to the envelopes as I scrubbed a tired hand over my face. 

“He writes me a letter a week now, give or take.” My voice was flat, emotionless. “Sometimes he writes more frequently - usually if I’ve done something he doesn’t like. Sometimes he doesn’t write for weeks and I hope…” I let my voice trail off. 

“That he’s given in?” Jareau asked. 

“That he’s dead,” I replied bluntly. “I know he’s never giving in.” 

“How do you know that?” Spencer asked, and I felt a bubble of anger at the ridiculous question. 

“Because when somebody doesn’t give up after twenty years - you kinda get the message that this is an endgame type of situation.” I reached in and drew out the crumpled letter I knew all too well, and handed it to him. Jareau rounded his shoulder and I watched them read it together - trepidation, disgust, shuddering horror, and realisation flickering across their faces like a simultaneous vintage light show. “And that’s by no means the worst one. But he sent that letter the day after I went on my first date in five years. And I assume Rachel told you all about our attempts to report him after Chris Gray’s death?”

They looked up in complete shock and I offered a sad, knowing smile. “Yeah, I got her email. She was saying she was going to call the FBI and make them listen. I didn’t reply - I’ve been trying to cut her off for years.”

“Cut her off?” Jareau asked.

“He hurts people I get close to,” I said softly. “He’s not as overt as when he killed Chris, I think he got angry and forgot himself. Now, they go on a few dates with me, and they lose their job over something they’re almost certain they didn’t do. If I talk to a girl I meet at the gym, her car gets broken into and her work tools stolen. If I go out for drinks with someone from the office, they come home and they’ve left something burning on the stove and get a fine from the building super. One guy I had a couple of dates with got mugged on the way home from the last one. Insidious coincidences that all have me in common, and I couldn’t hope to prove a damn thing.” 

They looked at one another as they considered that information, but I was too exhausted to do anything but flop down onto the couch, rubbing my sore eye tiredly. 

“The missing girl.” I said, and Spencer came to sit down on the chair facing me, even as Jareau pulled on a pair of gloves and started flicking through the open letters. “Her letters, are they like mine?” 

He skated gently over my question. “When did you last get a letter from him?” 

“Monday night,” I replied. “It’s always in my box downstairs when I get in from work. Are her letters like mine?” This was a give and take. If he wanted information, he needed to answer my questions too. 

“Yes,” he chanced, and Jareau looked at him as she glanced through a letter from the bottom drawer. “Very similar. Which one is Monday’s?”

“Top drawer, top of the pile. Why are you a Fed?” 

Both of them looked at me at that. Jareau dropped her gaze, and coughed slightly as she began combing through the top drawer, but Spencer held his. 

“You need to answer my question.” I reminded him quietly. 

“I was asked.” It wasn’t a whole answer, but I’d hold him to the rest of it later. “Did you ever file a police report after the ones in Pasadena?”

“In Scotland, when the first letter arrived. I thought they might be able to trace them, if they were coming through a postal system. They opened a report, but nothing came of it. They were sympathetic - one officer even gave me a phone number to call if he ever showed up in person but they were very frank about the fact that finding someone by post was nearly impossible.” I swallowed. “At least they tried. NYPD didn’t give a rat’s ass.” 

“You reported to the NYPD?” He sounded surprised by this and I shrugged. 

“They looked into it. But when I said that he’d been sending the letters for years without ever showing himself, they asked me how I expected them to proceed. I could put a mail block on my address, they said, and have my letters filtered, but there was no way to trace them. They dusted the envelope for fingerprints and took one for DNA testing but I never heard back.”

“When was this?” Spencer asked. 

“I moved here ten years ago, so around then.” I hesitated, but the question in my head faltered as I looked up at him. His face was soft now, with a trace of genuine sympathy. “I even hired a lawyer once I had a bit saved up. Found one with a track record in harassment cases, but even she said that she’d never seen one where he’d never shown himself.”

“She couldn’t do anything either?” he asked.

“We went through every person in my life - everyone I could remember meeting. She got an investigator to look into the ones we identified, and she sent over some of the letters for analysis. There were no fingerprints but there was trace DNA, but no matches in any public access system. I assume you’ve run the missing girl’s letters through the police database too?” 

“Yes. Same result,” he replied, and I was mollified by his honesty, rewarding him with an elaboration. 

“But like everything else - I have no idea who is, or even could be. His first letter came out of the blue. I don’t have any rejected ex-boyfriends, or even anyone who’s asked me out and I said no. Not even any people who’ve ever shown an abnormal interest in me.” I gestured around the room. “I was an ordinary student, with an ordinary GPA, in an ordinary field of study. Now I’m a predictive analyst for a Wall Street firm, which is an ordinary job for an economist in New York. I didn’t ask for this, and no part of my life holds to it. So, I can’t help you other than to provide the letters for you to read, but I’m not sure you’d learn any more about him than I did from them.”

“What did you learn?” Jareau interjected, a frown pinching her forehead. 

I shrugged. “Not much. I think he’s a few years older than me - he referred to a couple of things that were around in the seventies that I had to look up to get the reference. He has an extensive knowledge of the Bible. He talks about the mountains occasionally, so I assumed he’s from somewhere like that. He’s got a pretty old-fashioned attitude to women outside of the home. A lot of the violent fantasies talk about branding. He hates dogs…”

Spencer and Jareau shared a look. 

“What is it?” 

Spencer looked at me, and chewed over his words. “My team… we’re profilers. We try and build a description of the person that is most likely to commit a crime like this, and then we use it to narrow down a suspect pool.”

“Ok,” I said, unsure of the expectation in his voice. “Is there a question?”

“You’ve been reading these letters for twenty years,” Jareau continued, pointedly. “You know him better than any of us could. You could help us to work out what sort of person he is.”

“I don’t know him at all,” I snapped. “I’ve never…” 

“No, but you know the contents of the letters,” Spencer soothed. “Rachel told us that you always read them, even when they were violent.”

“I needed to make sure the next one wasn’t threatening to abduct me. The thread is that I choose to be with him, that he’s waiting for me,” I exhaled tightly around the hollow pain in my chest. “I read them to make sure that that hadn’t changed.”

“We think he abducted Katy by force,” Jareau tried. “And we now think the letters he sent to her were to you, by proxy. We don’t know the link between you two yet, and we need your help to find it.”

“Don’t patronise me,” I replied quietly. “I’ll help you for her sake, and hers alone. But this is on the proviso that you, and your team, understand that I don’t know who he is. I don’t even know who he might be. All I have is twenty years of letters that I didn’t ever want, and actively tried to stop, only to find out that nobody who should have given a damn, gave one. All I ever wanted was normality, and I saved the letters so if I disappeared one day, maybe someone with a badge would be forced to find a fuck to give.”

They nodded, their faces reassuringly grave as they took in my outburst.

“I need to call my office, and then I’ll come with you,” I stood up, heady with the newfound sense of purpose. “There’s a suitcase in the closet if you want to take the letters.” 

I left them methodically unpacking the bureau and tucking the letters into the old case, and closed my bedroom door as I reached around to unzip my skirt. As I pulled my shirt off and deposited into the linen basket, I felt the ominous pricking of tears. I pulled off my vest and pressed my face into the soft fabric, leaving mascara stains on the silk. _Stop crying_ , I ordered myself. _You’re not a child._

But I felt like one. I felt like a nineteen year old college student drowning in a sea of blue letters and neglectful indifference, facing off against a wall of folded arms and blank faces set in pathetic irony to the polished badges. Serve and protect. 

I felt like an old woman with no trace of a life or love who might never get another letter. 

I wiped furiously at my face, erasing any trace of running makeup or tears, pulled my hair out of my eyes, and prepared to go into battle once more. 

_You’ll be free_. I’ll be free.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some hollow truths.

The coffee was long since cold, but my hands remained wrapped around the cup - my muscles too exhausted to move them. 

A hand reached out and steadied the cup, guiding it gently back to the table. I hadn’t even realised I was trembling. Spencer’s eyes were soft as he sat down beside me, and I turned away from the concern - too tired to process anything beyond the essential motions of continued breathing and reflexive swallowing. 

“How are you doing?” 

I made a noise that might have been ‘fine,’ and he frowned. “You’re not fine.”

“I’m just tired,” I deflected. “I was in that interview room for three hours; recounting my entire life to two complete strangers.”

“I know.” The apology in his voice sounded genuine, but his voice faltered on the follow through. 

“Was any of it useful?” I asked, hollowly. “Or was it just confirmation that there’s still nothing to say who he is?” 

“It’s never clear at the beginning,” he replied. “It takes time to build up the profile. The letters are helping.” 

His remark wasn’t the comfort he thought it was. “Those letters are like diaries of my life,” I said, quietly. “What I was doing, who I was with, what I was wearing - or not wearing. He talks about me buying tampons at the store, and tells me that I shouldn’t use them. He talks about preferring the white bra to my blue one. That I should wear the white dress in my closet that I haven’t worn in fifteen years. It’s sick. But at least the letters were only between us. I can’t think of complete strangers going through them.” I could feel the bubbling nausea in my chest, the tightening of my breathing as I tried to force down the panic. The reaction was almost instinctive at this point - the violent roiling of my stomach, the room beginning to spin… 

Spencer’s hand gripped mine, squeezing tightly and pressing into the knuckle. “Take a deep breath,” he urged. I forced one in with a great gulp of air, swallowing the sob that threatened as I pulled my hand from his. 

“I don’t need you to tell me -” I choked, and forced out the air, “how to get through a panic attack.” I placed my forehead on my hand, digging my nails into my wrist to ground myself as I took a few steadying breaths.

When I looked back up, Spencer was still beside me, his hands clasped tightly in his lap. I looked away - unable to face him. My truth was laid bare before him: the story of my life with every intimate detail recorded and judged upon. I had no secrets, no privacy, no peace. 

“There’s an exhibit,” I said quietly. “In London. An art piece: a glass box that a woman sleeps inside while people watch. It’s supposed to be about vulnerability. My whole life has been that glass box, with one viewer. And I can’t see him, and I don’t know where he is. I’ve spent my entire life looking over my shoulder for him, and I’ve never even seen him. How? How is that possible?”

“We’re going to catch him,” Spencer said, without a trace of doubt in his voice. As if this was a certainty. 

“I hope you do. For Katy’s sake.” 

“What about for your sake?” he asked, softly. “You’d never have to hear from him again.”

“He’s already ruined my life,” I replied, tiredly. “I’m never going to have a normal one. I’m too old to be starting over now. I want to help you find Katy, and I want him out of my life, but he’s never going away.” I tapped my temple softly. “He’s always going to be in here, whispering those fucking vile things I’ve had to read about myself for twenty years.” 

“They’re not true.” Spencer attempted, but I cut him off.

“They are. They’re all true. But the difference between me and normal people is that they’re … only in their own head.” I couldn’t find the words. He cocked his head, unsure of my meaning. “When you do something bad, or wrong, or mean, or just plain stupid, it’s just you. Maybe you feel guilty, or like an asshole, or stupid, but it’s just you. When I do something, he always knows. My life is a goldfish bowl with all of my faults being beaten into me with his letters.” Spencer opened his mouth to cut in, but I held up a hand. “And I know I shouldn’t give a damn, but I do. Not about his opinion, I care that I can’t do a damn thing without having it picked over in another fucking letter.” My voice was raised now and I could hear noises behind the two way mirror. I didn’t care. “That I can’t go to the grocery store without this voice in my head narrating the next letter I’m gonna get. _‘Don’t buy Tylenol, buy more vegetables, buying condoms - you vile wanton slut.’_  
“That I can’t even have drinks with a perfectly ordinary guy without that...voice pounding around my skull louder than whatever the guy is saying to me. Without shaking as I open the letter the night after I have sex with someone because I can’t take another five page description about how he wants to eviscerate me…” A woman opened the door, peering at me with tense concern. Spencer tried to wave her away, but she seemed anxious at leaving him in a room with the raving maniac and stayed, eyes warily on me. She needn’t have worried - I couldn’t carry on. My shaking hands came up to press into my eyes as my voice broke into a stifled sob. _Don’t cry. Don’t show weakness. Don’t cry._

I heard the door click shut. Spencer’s hand was outstretched on the table, palm down - reaching for me but not touching. 

“That’s never going to go away. No matter what you do. I’m gonna have him in here for a lifetime.” I swallowed, glancing up at the two way mirror. “This is the first time that anyone has even seriously believed that he was actually dangerous.” 

“Mismatched reconciliation,” Spencer murmured. I looked at him, unsure. “You’ve always known he was dangerous. But when you reported him, the police didn’t treat him as if he was. Your brain was trying to cope with external factors minimising the danger, when your instinct and better understanding knew that he was.” 

I shook my head, still unclear as to his meaning. 

“The voice in your head isn’t his. It’s your brain assessing your actions and trying to encourage you to take the course that would result in the lowest risk - the danger being the violence in his letters that came when you did something he disliked.” 

“So it’s my own brain stopping me from having any sort of life,” I scoffed. “That’s not a good thing.”

“It was trying to keep you safe in a chronically stressful situation,” he replied gently. 

“What, by making me hear voices?” My voice was raising in pitch again. “His voice? Over and over until I couldn’t sleep? How is that keeping me safe?”

“The brain will try and mitigate against danger in any way possible,” Spencer’s voice was level and gentle and I clung to it like a drowning sailor to driftwood. “He’s not inside your head. He can’t get to you there. He can’t get to you here.” 

“I thought you were a mathematician, not a psychotherapist,” I shot back, swiping at my eyes to wipe away any trace of tears. “Or is this another degree?” 

“Psychology,” he replied, and I arched an eyebrow. 

“The two PhDs weren’t enough for one resume?” He bit down on something, and I choked out a laugh that surprised us both. “Are we on number four or number five now?” 

“Three,” he replied. “But the study of psychology helps with the profiling.” 

“Have you made a profile from my letters yet?” I tidied my voice into a relatively level question. 

“They’re building one,” Spencer said quietly, more careful now. “It’s just my team reading them, nobody else. I trust all of them.” 

I had to tell him. 

“There’s a box of letters that are separate,” I admitted, finally. He looked up at me, surprised.   
“The ones that I kept in the apartment were the bread-and-butter ones. Creepy, and occasionally violent, but the ones I kept back are…” I didn’t need to finish the words. His eyes met mine, and he saw the thousand yard stare in them. “If I ever disappeared, I was worried that he’d destroy the letters before anyone could see them. So I kept a few separately - hidden in a few places. My lawyer had a couple, I left a few in my desk drawer at the office, and the very worst ones are in a safety deposit box at the bank. I left a note in my will for them to be released to the police. I figured they’d have to pay attention to a body and a box full of envelopes with someone describing how they’d like to kill her.” 

“Are you willing to share those?” Spencer asked quietly, and I was surprised to hear him phrase it as a choice. 

“I wouldn’t have to?” I asked. 

“They could be considered evidence,” he explained. “So, the police could get a warrant to secure them, if they thought it might help bring Katy home.” 

I scrubbed a hand over my face. Another mental hill I’d be forced to climb today. I hadn’t read those letters in years, and the thought of doing so sent bile up into my chest, but before I could swallow down the acid, I felt Spencer’s hand rest gently on mine. I couldn’t help the shiver that ran through me at the sensation of his touch, at anyone’s. I kept my hand perfectly still, afraid that he would remember himself and move it if I did. 

“But I think you’ve had enough of not being able to make your own decisions. So if I have to build a profile without them, I will.” He squeezed gently, and I blinked the stinging out of my eyes, trying to keep them focused on his hand without the blur of tears. I didn’t cry. I never cried. I couldn’t cry. “This is your choice. I’m not going to invade into your life any further than that you’ve trusted me with so far.” 

I wiped my free hand over my mouth, hissing through a sob thinly disguised as a sniff. He waited patiently, not lifting his hand but making minute, imperceptible circles with the pressure of his thumb. Nobody would see a thing, but we could both feel the comfort it wrought with the shaky breaths I took to steady myself. 

“I need a ride to the bank.” 

*

I looked anywhere but at Spencer’s face as I climbed back into the SUV, placing the metal box on the floor between my legs. He’d asked to come in with me, but I’d refused him - leaving him twiddling his thumbs in the car as I arranged the opening of the box with the bank manager. 

“You okay?” he asked. 

“Yeah.” I kept my gaze levelled at the mail truck parked in front of us. The high emotion of the interview room had all but drained from my bones, and I was left feeling so hopelessly empty I couldn’t muster the energy for anything more. Spencer didn’t press, and flicked on his indicators to pull out into the slow-moving rush hour traffic. The car had lights and sirens, but Spencer didn’t seem to be inclined to race back to the station, despite the circumstances. 

“Thank you.” His voice was still that same cautious, concerned tone that made me feel as though he saw me as a cornered animal, keeping his voice low and soft so as not to spook me to flight. It was a fair call - I’d done it to him before. 

It was time to bite the bullet. “There’s a letter in here that I don’t know if you’ll want your team to read.” I saw his head turn to me out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t look at him. “Do you want me to take it out before I hand them over?” 

“Wh-” I heard him clear his throat and try again. “The letter after that night?” 

“Yeah,” I replied flatly. “Last letter I ever received at Caltech.” 

He considered it. “Do you want them to see it?” 

I frowned, and chanced a look at him. His eyes were fixed on the road, but I could see the muscle in his jaw flexing as he considered the eventualities. 

“It’s materially no worse than the others from after I slept with people. Like… it’s graphically violent, sure.” I trailed off. It was a lot worse than that fairly gentle descriptor. “But he names you in it… and he knew that it was your first time. He was angry that I’d taken your innocence. First letter he ever called me a succubus in.” I recalled quietly. “Are you happy for your team to know that?” 

Spencer shrugged. “They’ve known me a long time. I’m not worried about them.” 

“Do they know that we slept together?” I asked, bluntly. “Before they find out from this?” 

“Yes,” Spencer replied, and I was once again surprised and mollified by his frank honesty with me. Ask your question. Was this part of that?  
“Isn’t that a problem?” I asked. 

Spencer sighed, and rubbed his hand over his jaw. “Not a problem, just not ideal. But we thought you might…” He stopped, and then glanced at me. I raised an eyebrow, and he heard my unspoken words. 

“Rachel was...fairly angry on your behalf,” he began. 

I nodded. “It spoiled her college years.” 

“I don’t think she’s angry about that. I think she’s angry that this case only came to us because of Katy. That if Katy hadn’t gone missing, you’d still be living like this. And that we were only interested in what happened to you because of her.”

“Weren’t you?” 

“Finding more evidence in Katy’s case was crucial, but no.”

I waited for him to continue. 

“I wanted to tell you that we weren’t. I asked my Unit Chief if I could go with JJ so I could tell you myself.” Spencer didn’t look at me, keeping his own eyes on the road as if afraid of my reaction. “I told her the truth about what happened between us because she values honesty, and she’d trust me if I wasn’t keeping anything from her.” 

“Ok.” 

“They’ve been my team for a long time. Almost thirteen years. And they know that I slept with a girl in college. But I called you a one night stand who I never saw again.” His voice sounded so guilty I almost laughed. 

“That is exactly what I did, Spencer.” 

“No, I phrased it like you were someone who just ditched me.” His voice still carried that guilty tone and it damn near broke my heart. 

“Because I did. You don’t have anything to apologise for.” I wanted to reach out and take his hand, but cowardice kept mine squeezed between my thighs. “I flirted with you, and I had sex with you because I wanted to feel something, and because you were nice to me. I used you, and I ran out on you while you were still asleep.” 

Spencer’s jaw twitched, and I braced for the anger - for him realising the truth in my words and the horrible way I’d treated him. Waited for him to demand to know why, accuse me of heartlessness, to turn cool and unkind. 

It would be safer if he did. I needed him to. I couldn’t have softness, couldn’t have compassion. Anything that could be mistaken for affection was danger.   
“You didn’t,” he said finally, with a determination that brooked no argument. ‘You stayed. And not because I asked you to. I pretended to be asleep while you got dressed, even though I wanted to ask you to stay more than anything. But you changed your mind.” 

“I didn’t know you hadn’t done it before,” I admitted. “I wouldn’t have put you in that situation if I had.” 

“I was a very willing participant,” he disagreed. The route he was taking was definitely not the most efficient route back to the precinct.

“Not that,” I replied. “I couldn’t stay - ever. Just in case he got the wrong idea. It would have been cruel to fuck you and then split. That’s why I stayed. I wanted to wake you up and say goodbye, but I... “ the easiest lie came to mind, but I dug for the truth. “I could hear the letter in my head. What he was going to say, how it would make me feel. I wanted to hold onto the feeling of you, and how right it felt.” I swallowed, forcing out the hardest part. “While I’m with someone, he’s always there, at the back of my mind. When I was with you - it was like I refused to let him sully any part of you, and I was free of him for just a little while. I had so few good memories, I wanted to hold onto it.” 

If I hadn’t been listening for it, I wouldn’t have heard the hitch in Spencer’s breathing. 

“You deserved more than the first girl you slept with slipping out like a thief in the night,” I murmured. “I wanted to stay.” 

“You did stay,” he reminded me. 

“Yeah. For a while.” 

He didn’t press after that, and I was grateful. The exhaustion was back with a vengeance, and I leaned my head on the cool window, watching the passing traffic with heavy eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWO? in ONE day? 
> 
> Don't ever say I don't spoil you. Next chapter is getting good though - I split this one.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some barriers come down.

When I woke, I shot up in a panic, heaving great ragged breaths as my surroundings returned to me - along with the hand resting lightly on my leg. I grounded myself to the touch, forcing deep breaths even as my brain howled _not safe not safe not safe._

“Hey,” Spencer said softly, and I peeled myself off the wall of the car, forcing my fingers to release their white knuckled grip on the door and seat. “You’re okay.” 

“Sorry,” I said, shortly, scrubbing a hand over my face. His hand withdrew and I almost cried out. 

“If you want to get some rest, we can arrange a hotel room,” he said, and it was that painfully level, gentle tone that made my skin itch.

“I’m not here to sleep,” I snapped, unclicking my seatbelt and opening the car door. He said nothing else as I hefted the metal box out of the car, waving him off when he tried to take it from me. As he started for the elevator out of the parking garage, I remembered our conversation in the car and stopped. Did I want his team reading that letter? 

I flicked open the catches to the box and scratched around inside until I’d found the letter, crumpled and torn in the bottom of the box. Spencer watched as I pushed it into my jacket pocket and flipped the catches closed. 

“You don’t approve?” I asked, but he shook his head, taking a step back towards me. 

“You’ve had to live with this for all this time,” he said, and there was a little less evenness to his voice. It surprised me, the tangible proof that he was even slightly affected by this after everything he must have seen as a Fed. “And with nobody else even taking the time to give a damn.”

The trace note of anger in his voice smacked me square in the heart. I blinked at him, unable to assemble a cogent response. 

“And after all of that, you’re still here. Giving us the evidence we need to help someone else.” He reached out, almost unconsciously and I couldn’t help but lean into his touch, brief and passing as it was. “When we find Katy, it will be because of you.” I blinked at him and he held my gaze with that same open honesty that I’d cupped in my hand all those years ago. Now, my hand remained around a metal box even as it yearned to reach out for him. “So no, if you want to keep a letter back because it’s too painful or too personal, then that’s your decision.” 

“I’m not keeping it back. Not completely,” I told him. “I don’t want a stranger to read it. I need to know who’s reading all of these.” I swallowed, hard, and set my mouth in a thin line against the emotion that threatened. “These are his most violent fantasies. And if intimacy is a word that can ever be applied to this situation then they are.” I struggled against the rising panic as the memories of those vicious words, almost tearing straight through the paper with the force that had been scratched into them. He let me work through it, waiting as if he had all the time in the world. “I can’t have them read...by someone I can’t see. I can’t…”

“I’ll take you upstairs,” he said. “You can give them to my team, and we’ll read them, take what we need to know and give them back.” 

“There’s a lot of letters,” I told him. 

“I’m a very fast reader.” 

I tried to reconcile the innocent boy I’d known with the twisted hatred in the letters in my arms. He’s not like that anymore, my head remarked. Look at him. 

But when I did, all I saw was that softness. The way he’d let me choose - all the way through. He’d asked for the letters, he hadn’t demanded them, and he’d given me every choice to back out. He’d driven me to the precinct, to the bank, back while I was sleeping and waited until I woke up. He could grow his hair out and leave his stubble, and fold in a set of lines in his skin to match mine, but he was that same boy who’d tried to cheat a hand when I’d been busy explaining the coefficient curve of the likelihood of drawing a full house from a deck with an exponentially increasing cohort of players. Good. Spencer Reid is a good man. 

But there was pain there too. I’d seen a long scar on his arm when he’d opened a door for me, a jagged one on his neck when he’d tucked a phone under his ear to take a call. 

I’d grown up, grown old. But so had he. 

“I don’t want them to read that letter. But it’s one of the longest, and if what you say about the violent ones being when he’s least controlled and least careful are true, then it needs to be read.” I set the box down and pulled it out of my pocket, extending it to him. 

He took it gently, keeping his eyes on my face, and I hoped he could sense the trust that I was placing in him for this. God help us if he couldn’t. 

But the care with which he unfurled the envelope and pulled out the pages, checking back up to my face as he did so - was all the truth I needed. I kept my eyes on his hands as they traced down the page at flying speed, flicking into the next one, and the next. I couldn’t watch his face. 

I knew that letter. Could recite it by heart if I needed a guaranteed episode of nausea. But watching him read it sent icy needles through my veins. I set the box down between my feet and wrapped my arms around my middle as I waited for him to finish. I didn’t look up at his face. I couldn’t bear to see the revulsion, or the fear. The threats weren’t just to me. They were more veiled than the overt ones to me about how he’d rip… but they were still threatening him. They weren’t describing which implements he’d use, but they were there nonetheless. Maybe I should have had someone else read it. Maybe it wasn’t fair. Maybe I was being cruel...

“...I’m gonna put the letter back in your pocket.” Spencer was saying, and I tried to shake off the roaring sensation in my ears. 

I shook my head. The dam was cracked now. No sense trying to duct tape it over with a false sense of control. I kicked the box towards him. 

“Just take them. Have the whole precinct read them. I can’t…I just... I don’t care.” It was a lie. It was the truth. I was too exhausted to give a shit any more. I wanted to crawl into a box and just fucking die there. I wanted it all to stop. 

“They’re not going to read them,” Spencer replied, apparently unruffled by my outburst. “My team is going to read them, and then they’re going back in the box.” 

“You saw what he said he wanted to do to me,” I whispered. “They’ll all know. They’ll look at me and…” I broke off, unable to force the words over the painful dam in my chest. 

“They will look at you like I do,” he murmured, and I saw him tuck the letter into his own pocket so his hands could come up to hold my upper arms where they were wrapped around me, squeezing tightly against my ribs until my own lungs were crying out for air. “Like…”

“Like what?” I hissed. 

“Nobody should have to live like this,” he said, biting down on whatever he wanted to say. “Nobody should have to read fantasies that someone else has had about them, over and over for years with nobody there to stop them. And the fact that you did isn’t fair. It’s not.” He gripped my arms tighter, pressing his thumbs into the soft skin until I looked at him. “You deserve a life, Anya. You deserve to be free of him. And I’m sorry it took Katy disappearing for us to even find you. You’re not just a witness in this, and your letters aren’t just cold evidence. You’re a victim of this unsub as much as Katy is. I told you that I’d build a profile without them if I had to, and I will. If it makes you feel safer that people don’t have to read them, I will.” 

“I need to find her,” I choked out. “I can’t think of her in his hands.” 

“I need to find him because I can’t think of you in his.” Spencer’s eyes widened, as if surprised by his own outburst. “Sorry, I…”

I considered this for a second, and was shocked by the sudden wash of security this brought. I wasn’t just a helpful witness. I was here because they were afraid for me, for my safety as well as Katy’s. That was a first, and not an altogether unwelcome one. 

I broke the silence first. “Your team can read the letters. I want to be in the room. I don’t think I could handle them discussing the...intricacies of the fantasies though.” 

Spencer nodded, as if he was noting this down in his head to brief his team. 

“You said you were building a profile of him,” I managed. Spencer nodded again. “I want to see it. I want to know what sort of man you think he is.” 

“I think I want you to help us build it,” he replied quietly. “You’ve known him for twenty years. You’ve read each of these letters, and you’ve constructed a picture of who he might be in your mind. I’m willing to bet that your picture is fairly accurate, and we might just need to fill in some of the gaps.”

I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled a long steady stream. The base of fear that had been churning settled back into its usual pit in my stomach and I reached down to pick up the box. 

“Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok. I need some votes. 
> 
> I work full time, and I can usually write about 2-3k words a day -ish. (More if I'm writing smut, whoops)
> 
> Do we want to carry on with the daily updates, or stagger them so the chapters are longer, but the updates less frequent?


	8. Chapter 8

_Can I have a minute outside?_

I blinked at the text, confused. Emily was right in front of me, ostensibly flicking through the letters. Why would she text when she could just ask?

“I’m just grabbing a coffee,” I told Anya. She made a noise of acknowledgement, but didn’t look up from the laptop she was typing on, and I slipped into the hallway outside the conference room as Emily did the same. It wasn’t the most covert exit, but Anya seemed engrossed in her thoughts and hadn’t given any indication that she’d noticed. Tara had suggested writing out her assessment of the unsub, before we muddied the waters by introducing our profile to her, and she was already three pages into the document. 

I closed the door behind me and turned to face Emily, arms folded.

“What’s up?”

“I’m not sure that this is the best idea,” she replied. 

“Anya knows this unsub better than we ever could. If we stand a chance of finding Katy…”

“I don’t mean for the case. I mean for her.” Emily waved one of the letters at me. “I’ve been reading these for just a few hours, and I feel physically sick. This is an open wound of trauma for her, and we are poking it.” 

It was the same thought that had plagued me, but I’d trumped it hours ago. “Rachel told us that nobody has ever looked for Anya’s stalker. Not properly. Everything she’s found out about him has been on her own. She went round printing shops looking for the paper, she hired harassment lawyers to try and make him stop, private investigators when the police let her down.”

“I know, and she’s done everything right…” Emily tried, but I cut her off. 

“She’s been trying to make it stop. She kept the letters, even though they traumatised her, just in case they could ever be used as evidence. She’s been looking over her shoulder for him for years, and not because she’s afraid of what he might do, because she wants to see him, to see if she recognises him to report him. She even set up an evidence release in case he killed her.” I paused. “The wound you’re talking about is twenty years old, and she has been keeping it clean and treated as best she can for all that time. She’s the only one who gets to make the decision about when she stops. People, law enforcement, have been making bad decisions on this case since the day this started.” 

“I know. But exhibiting signs…” 

“She’s scared,” I interrupted, my voice raised. “This is a massive escalation on his part. Up until now, the whole thread has been about her choosing him. As long as she didn’t, the letters would still come, but he wouldn’t do anything beyond stalk and harass. Now she has proof that he is capable of taking someone by force, and if whatever stressor has caused him to abduct someone, she has no reassurance that he won’t do the same to her if he breaks down further.”

“She’ll have protection,” Emily said, but I could see the same argument battling in her head as had gone through mine when I’d driven around the city with Anya sleeping beside me. 

“She doesn’t trust cops. She doesn’t trust us, not really.” I swallowed. “She just wants it to stop. She talks in her sleep,” I blurted before I realised what I’d said. Emily’s eyes met mine with such speed I felt the ache of whiplash in my neck. “In the car on the way back from the bank.” I offered by way of explanation. 

“We can’t find any records of any therapy visits,” Emily said quietly, her own admission now. “Or prescriptions, or any indication that she’s tried to seek help beyond payments to a PI and a lawyer that stopped three years ago.” 

“You had Garcia look her up?” I said, completely unable to keep the edge of bitterness out of my voice. This was irrational. If I wasn’t so involved, I would have been the first to suggest it, and Emily knew that. 

“We did.” There was no trace of an apology in her tone, just a frank statement of fact. In any other situation, I wouldn’t have cared, but in this one, I did. “Spence - I let you go to the apartment because I could see that this was eating you up. I’ve kept you on this case because Anya seems calmer when you talk to her. You’ve managed to get information about the lawyer, and persuade her to give us the hidden box of letters.” 

“I didn’t persuade her,” I snapped. “She volunteered them.”

“Almost four hours after she gave the first batch,” Emily refuted. “I don’t blame her. I understand why, particularly after reading them. But she is angry, and she was keeping things from us. We had to check her out, for her sake, and for Katy’s.” 

“She’s spent her whole life hiding from people,” I said. “Lying to people who want to be close to her, having brief relationships that she has to cut herself off from to keep them safe, feeling guilty for something she has no control over. She doesn’t trust people, least of all us. Those letters at the bank were her security, and not for her own life. They were supposed to be released if she ever disappeared - to convince the police that there was a serious danger out there. Now they’re out of the safety of the bank, she has to trust that we’ll follow through if something happens to her.” 

“She knows that we will,” Emily began, but I shook my head. 

“I know she’s projecting. But not seeking therapy is precisely consistent with how she is - she doesn’t look to others to help her because she genuinely believes that they can’t.” I chewed over the words. “From her perspective, what could a therapist do for her? How does she process trauma that she can’t get away from, that’s ongoing and constant? And that’s not even considering the trust and closeness element that she’d have to break in order to start therapy.” I glanced back at the closed door to the conference room. “I don’t think we can read anything into her actions or inaction. There’s no precedent for this- not for this long, not under such constant assault and fear with no respite, no support structure, nothing. She’s been fighting this on her own for all this time, and the way that she is now is the product of that.” 

Emily looked at me, and I could see what she wanted to say, could see the truth in her words - the pragmatic practicality of a Unit Chief making the best decision for the case. I made one last appeal to Emily, my friend before she could square her shoulders and order me back to D.C.

“She needs to know that we’re not giving up. That we’re not just going to fly home if the trail goes cold and leave her to a life of those letters and no hope.” I swallowed hard. “Too many people have done that to her already. I can’t.” 

“You’re not to blame for how Pasadena handled the case. You can’t shoulder blame from before you were even in the FBI, that’s not fair.” Emily folded her arms. “That’s too much for you, for any of us.”

“Somebody needs to,” I said. “She’s been carrying it on her own for long enough. I’m not leaving her behind to do it again.” 

Emily looked at me, and I saw the debate raging in her head. “Ok.” I brightened, but she brought me back down to Earth with a thud as her voice changed timbre and she became my unit chief again. “But you need to be careful, Spence. She’s in a lot of pain, and you are very close to the edge of this. I need you fully engaged on this case, not just for her, but for Katy too.” 

I placated her with a nod, swallowing the disquiet at the albeit necessary comment with practiced ease. “I’m not going to not be her friend though.” I said quietly. “I’m not going to not acknowledge that we were, once, that I care about her.” 

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Emily’s voice was her own this time and she was fixing me with a look of sympathy that I didn’t want. “Just remember that this is a vipers nest of dragged-up trauma for her. Be careful how...” 

I heard the unspoken end to that sentence, and was grateful that she’d left it so, because I wouldn’t have been able to swallow that without a fight. I just frowned at her and she ducked her gaze back out the window. 

“We need to get on with the case. It’s the only way we can help either of them.” 

I couldn’t hold back the note of anger at the hypocrisy. “You’re telling me,” I snipped, and left her standing, staring after me as I ducked back into the conference room. 

Anya wasn’t on the laptop. Her seat was empty, the screen still open to the ordered bullet points she’d been making. 

The cop fiddling with the display screen at the far end of the room looked up in surprise, and then round the empty room as if he hadn’t noticed. 

“Oh, I assumed she went to the bathroom,” he said, with breathtaking indifference. I burst out of the conference room, about to yell for Emily, when I collided with a body coming back in. 

“Whoa,” she said, taking a step back. “What’s going on?” 

I looked down at her, quelling the completely irrational panic in my chest. We were in a police station, surrounded by dozens of witnesses. She’d just gone to the bathroom.

“Did you forget to get the coffee?” she asked, glancing at my empty hands.

“What?” I glanced at them too, and tried to cover. “Oh. No. I got distracted.”

She cocked an eyebrow, maneuvering around me and back into the conference room as I dumbly turned in an odd little circle to allow her to do so.

“Ok, well if you can manage to get to the break room this time, mine is black, no sugar.” She sat back down at the laptop and started tapping again, apparently dismissing me from the conversation. I turned again, and faced off with Emily’s painfully neutral expression from her position half hidden in the other office. I shrugged her off, brushing over her concern with careful carelessness. 

Coffee. I’d get her a coffee. 

Then we could sort out this whole damn mess. 

**

_It was pathetically fucking paranoid to count a minute out and slip out after him through the other door. The cop on the other side of the room didn’t bat an eyelid._

_It was downright suspicious to follow the muffled sound of their voices and to linger outside the bathroom door just out of sight. They couldn’t see me around the corner, but their voices carried clear as day from here._

_“...In the car on the way back from the bank.”_

_“We can’t find any records of any therapy visits. Or prescriptions, or any indication that she’s tried to seek help beyond payments to a PI and a lawyer that stopped three years ago.”_

_“You had Garcia look her up?”_

_“We did. Spence - I let you go to the apartment because I could see that this was eating you up. I’ve kept you on this case because Anya seems calmer when you talk to her. You’ve managed to get information about the lawyer, and persuade her to give us the hidden box of letters.”_

_I bit down so hard on my tongue I tasted iron, as I slipped into the bathroom, catching the door behind me so it didn’t slam._

_I closed myself into the stall and braced my hands on either wall, taking the deliberate steady breaths I was more than practiced in as the ragged heaving of my chest threatened in earnest. I had to laugh, a painful choked sob I didn’t even bother to stifle._

_Cops. All the fucking same, no matter which title they put in front of their name. Officer, Deputy, Detective, Supervisory Special Agent… Doctor. I dropped a hand to my abdomen, pushing up my shirt and digging my nails into the skin until it stung._

_Get a fucking grip._ I heard my own voice hiss. _I’m not here for you. I’m here for Katy._

_But I couldn’t get a grip. I couldn’t do anything but choke as though I was drowning._

_**They’re not here for you.** _

_**It’s never been for you.** _

**

The knock at the door of the conference room startled us all from our silent review. Anya’s hands paused on the keys for a second, and then resumed typing again.

JJ glanced at me, as she hopped up to answer it.

A young cop stood behind the door, evidence bag in hand, and I saw the familiar powder blue through the film. I jumped to my feet, mirroring Emily as the cop stepped in. 

“This was in the post from today,” he explained. “I didn’t recognise the person it was addressed to at the precinct, and one of the detectives told me to put it in an evidence bag and bring it up to you.”

“Was it dusted for prints?” Emily asked. 

“All letters that are external are. And they’re run through x-ray to check there’s nothing in them.”

I reached out for the evidence bag, and the cop willingly relinquished it to me, apparently glad to be rid of it. I pushed the envelope up in the bag, and read the addressee out. 

“Anya Liuken, 6th Precinct, 233 West Tenth Street.” I wheeled on the room, and on Suarez in particular. “How the hell does he know she’s here?” 

Suarez shook her head, but Anya rounded the table to pluck the envelope out of my hands. “He knows,” she said, flatly. “He always knows.”

She slit open the top of the thin envelope with practiced ease, and pulled out the paperinside, reading through the page with expressionless disinterest as we waited, pensively, for her to finish.

“He’s not happy about you being here,” she said, looking up at me. “He thinks I won’t be able to control myself.” 

“What else does he say?” Emily asked, but Anya wasn’t interested in reading it aloud. She waved it off into JJ’s hands and went back to her laptop. We gathered round JJ’s shoulders as she unfolded the single piece of paper. 

_My beloved._

_After all this time, you still cannot help yourself._

_As usual, you have conducted yourself with breathtaking foolishness. Your inability to maintain proper decorum in your dealings with a federal agency are not the appropriate qualities for any person maintaining a respectable standing. And for it to be with the victim who succumbed to your wanton sin all those years ago worsens your sin with each passing hour that you reject me._

_How dare you let him place your hands on you. How dare you tempt him so when you have already stolen such a precious part of him, you repulsive, depraved witch._

_1 Corinthians 6:18, for I as your headship, to sin against your own body by sexual immorality is to sin against that which is mine. The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. For I must restore you to your heavenly glory by mortification of the flesh. Your flesh. I shall render it from bone until such sin is repelled from you. You played the whore with your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whoring, to provoke me to anger. Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you._

_To turn away from me? From the life I have built for us and has been squandered these twenty years. I have built you a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and you have rejected the truth - your destiny. I have created our life, you must choose to open your heart to the light, and come to the kingdom of God that we shall inherit._

_My darling, you have made me wait for so very long. I ache for you, yearn to feel your touch against mine, the feeling of your body under mine. The life I have built for us waits for you still._

_My love,_

“Unsigned,” JJ finished. 

“He’s being careful,” Anya said, disinterestedly. “Practically boring for him.” 

“Careful?” JJ asked, gripping the letter in her hand.

Anya nodded, but didn't look up. “Can’t you tell? He started on a flesh-ripping line and then stopped himself. He’s angry at me, but he’s controlling it.”

“This is controlled?” I asked, looking at the disorganised ramblings. 

“When he’s angry he uses biblical quotes to point out my sin. Sometimes they run on for ten pages -handwritten, single spaced. He’s practically concise in that.” She gestured at the letter in JJ’s hand. “File it with the others. It’s nothing special.” 

I came to sit down beside her as JJ moved off to call Alvez, to let him know that we were definitely being tailed, and to see if he could get any eyes on the person who’d delivered the letter. 

“You don’t have to be dismissive of the letters,” I began gently, but the sheer look of venom she shot me shocked me into silence. 

“I’m not. But I’ve had to read so many of the damned things that I know what is and isn’t truly dangerous. He’s showing off, being a jackass in that.” Her frown remained pinched on her forehead as she dropped her eyes to her laptop again. 

“It’s still okay…” I tried again, but she simply shoved the laptop towards me. 

“When you’re ready for me to see this damn profile, call me. Until then, I’m gonna go find some food, because I’ve been in here since noon with nothing to eat.” I lifted my hand, plans in my head to ask if she was okay, to try and figure out why the soft pain had turned into venomous bitterness, but she shrugged me off. “When it’s ready, call me.” 

I watched her disappear into the hallway, and I turned her laptop screen towards me, unable to look up and see Emily’s I-told-you-so-but-sympathetic expression she almost certainly had in place. 

Instead, I flicked through the bullet points she’d constructed. Some were reasonable - guesses about his age or location from evidence, some were strikingly good guesses (disorganised thinker, paranoid, letters jump from coherence to rambling biblical citations to reasonable cogency, probably from a religious background, probably lived with his mother for a while). A couple were outlandish, but the last few she’d tagged as miscellaneous: dark hair, pale blue eyes, acne or otherwise scarred. Probably talks slowly, softly. Quick to anger. Hatred of women. Talked about killing animals.

Anya did know him better than anyone, and this profile proved it. 

I followed her through to the snack machine in the break room. She was counting out her quarters for a bag of M&Ms and she waved off the dollar I offered.

“We can get food delivered.” I tried. “We’re going to anyway, just let me know what you wan…”

“I have food at home,” she replied, slamming her hand into the stuck machine until the M&Ms dropped into the tray. 

“Yeah, but we don’t know how long we’re gonna be here,” I said. It was entirely the wrong thing to say. 

“I’m here to deal with the letters and help you with your profile. I’m going home after we’re done with that.” Her eyes flashed. “I’m not a cop, Spencer. I can’t do anything to find Katy except tell you what I know.”

This was such a flip from the Anya of a few hours earlier, I felt whiplashed. That Anya had been soft, and bone-tiredly sad, and quietly determined to do everything she could to find Katy. This Anya was bitter and vicious, looking for any opportunity to deliver a stinging barb to make me back off.

A figure, dressing in the dark. 

I came to stand in front of her, close enough to see her twitch in discomfort, as though ready to flinch away at the first second she could. 

“I get it,” I said, lifting a hand to her wrist. It was a cheap trick, and I knew it, but it kept her still and listening to me even as she leaned into the touch like a neglected baby bird. 

I knew touch-starvation. I knew how it made your heart ache until it was almost ready to burst out of your chest, and how even the lightest brush of a careful hand made a pitching keen want to rip from your chest like a wounded animal. I’d hold her for the rest of the night if it was what she needed, but my plans to do so were ripped away when she tore her wrist out of my hand. 

“No. You don’t.” Her eyes flashed and I saw the hint of disquiet before her voice spat out the fateful words. “But don’t worry. I’ll call my _therapist_.”

I felt the ringing in my ears as my brain processed her words. 

She’d heard us. 

“And I didn’t know I talked in my sleep, Spencer. Nice to find that out at thirty-eight. It would be embarrassing, but the only person I’ve ever shared a bed with is you. So I guess there’s nothing embarrassing that could come of that. I mean, apart from you reporting back whatever I said to your boss.” 

_How much had she heard?_ “Anya…”

“And I’m glad that your boss trusted me so little that even after I gave you everything, she still went digging through my financial records. It’s pretty disappointing reading,” she hissed. “I’ve never even taken a _vacation._ I shop at the same grocery store every week. I buy the same boring books at Barnes and Noble, and I buy boring plain clothes off the sale rack. I don’t do anything fun, ever because it’s not worth the mental torment that inevitably follows me doing anything. _I am boring._ So I hope that she found what she was looking for, because if I needed something else like a hole in the head, it was definitely more people digging through my private life.” 

I had nothing to say. She was right. 

She glared at me, and then tossed her M&Ms in the trash as she stalked out of the room. 

_Shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the general consensus was to keep the daily updates. I'm going to do so for now (stares in the 7k+ words I wrote yesterday) and then maybe break the chapters when I'm building up the climax to make sure that it's done well. 
> 
> Please keep the comments coming - it's way more motivating to write when you know that people are waiting for the next chapter to come in, and are just as excited as you are.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A choice is made.

I shifted in my seat, feeling the beads of sweat prickling uncomfortably under my blouse. I’d bought it for the floaty, feminine feel, and now it felt like it was a straitjacket, clinging to the clamminess of my skin. 

The room was fuller than I’d expected, and it was setting my teeth on edge. 

With each dark blue uniform that squeezed into the already straining meeting room I felt my stomach drop yet further, a fist reaching through my innards and crushing them until I couldn’t breathe. They’d told me that I could stay, to listen to them telling the cops what sort of person they were looking for, to hear my life unpicked in their lip service to me being in control of which parts of my history, fantasies about my life and my body, that they would need to spill to complete strangers. 

Complete strangers who hadn’t given a flying fuck ten years ago, and had only been forced to by a violent abduction of somebody else. Her body mattered. Mine didn’t. Mine was good for clues, for analysis, for shaking heads and clandestine discussions of my mental fragility. _It’s not you. It's never you. It’s Katy that matters here. Get a grip._

I pushed my way out of the room, almost shoving one white shirt over in my blindness. I didn’t look back to see who was following. 

It was Jareau who found me, heaving into the toilet basin. 

“Do you want me to get Spencer?” she asked quietly. 

“No,” I snapped. “I don’t need anyone. I just need to not be trapped in that room, listening to...” 

To her credit, she didn’t flinch at my outburst, or about the complete one-eighty to my position less than thirty minutes before the conference. 

“I can’t imagine how this feels…” she began, but I’d had enough. I looked round at her with such viciousness I saw her recoil slightly, gun-toting badge-carrying FBI agent and all. 

“You can’t. So you can go back in there, and find him, and make it all stop. That’s all I want.” 

She opened her mouth but I just glared pointedly at her. To my relief, she left without further argument, and I leaned my head against the door of the stall, counting out my inhales and exhales until I felt the burn in my chest subside. 

_You’re being childish,_ I thought. _A girl is missing, and you’re in here, throwing up your guts like a sorority girl after rush week._

My head was right, even as a smaller, younger part of me just wanted to lock the door of the stall and never come out. With her protesting all the way, I dragged my ass up and over to the sinks to splash cold water on my face - to fix my wrinkled shirt, and straighten my hiked up skirt. 

_Wanton slut bingo card, mark_ , I snorted, and then choked. Fuck. Was this my life now? 

Realisations trickled through my mind, like an insistent stream finding its way down a craggy mountainside. Even if they never caught him, his letters were out there. Someone other than me had read them, taken them at face value - placed the same degree of seriousness on the contents.

Was this vindication? Or was it just an exhausted resignation? Suddenly the insurmountable height of secrecy, enforced secrecy by negligent indifference to those I had tried to tell seemed to have fallen away to leave me with... nothing. 

There was nothing left. No life, no future, no past worth marking, no future worth hoping for. The present was a cold bathroom floor and flickering halogen light bars. This wasn’t a life. None of it had been a life. It had been a game of hiding, of breaking the rules for a few wonderful hours to feel something, anything, at the touch of someone’s hand, the feeling of their lips on my skin, the feeling of them on me, against me, within me... _inside me_...to convince myself that this was real - that I was still real. A real person, capable of an emotion beyond fear, loathing and apathy, only to be brought back to Earth with a crash of vicious words, and violent promises that left my head abuzz and my blood cold. 

I had been lying to myself all along. This wasn’t living. This was waiting for an inevitable. 

I slumped over the sink, with barely the energy to hold myself upright as I stared down at the pooled water trapped by the half plugged drain. I could feel the heat of tears on my face, but the lack of emotion left me motionless, unable to even lift my hands to wipe them away, and I let them slide off my chin and drip into the puddle of water below. 

The tangible feeling of cool ceramic under my palms was enough to pull me out of my head and back into the real world, and to hone in on the sound of someone’s shaky breathing in the stall behind me. 

The door creaked open, and a small woman let herself out of the stall, using a tissue to wipe away her own tears. I forced myself upright, to lift my hands to fiddle with my hair, to masquerade as anything but an emotionless husk. 

“I suppose they’re used to crying in the bathroom,” she said, by way of the inevitable greeting two crying women should offer one another in a public restroom. I swallowed, trying to wet my lips enough to respond, while she dabbed harder, wiping away the traces of mascara in the mirror. “I shouldn’t cry. She needs me to be strong for her, they said.”

“Easier said than done,” I replied softly. 

“I can’t bear to think of her so frightened,” she whispered, wiping at her eyes. “I just feel so helpless.” 

“You’re in the right place to help her,” I lied through my teeth, without a clue about what she was talking about. But ordinary people trusted cops, so this was an ordinary thing to say to someone bawling in the precinct bathroom. 

“They won’t tell me anything,” she gasped, another brim of tears welling up as she gripped my elbow. I patted it, in what I hoped was a reassurance. “How can I be strong for her if I don’t know what’s going on?” 

“I’m sure they’ll tell you as soon as they know anything,” I told her. 

“She’s my only daughter,” the woman gasped again, and her breast began to spasm with little sobs. I squeezed her hand gently, and tried to mumble something soothing. She blinked up at me. “Do you have children?” 

I felt the hollow emptiness that I’d put away a long time ago. “No. Never found the time.” The woman blinked at me, unsure by my flippant response, so I tried again. “I thought I did, a long time ago. Life didn’t work out that way.” 

_It wasn’t a complete lie. Children were a fever-dream of a complete impossibility that I’d ruled out years ago._

“I didn’t think I wanted children. And then Katy was born, and I couldn’t imagine life without her…” I swayed - the Earth shifting on its axis to nearly knock me off my feet.

Fuck. The Universe could not be this cruel. It couldn’t. It just couldn’t. 

“Katy?” My mouth asked before my head could stop it. 

The woman nodded, and drew out a picture of a young woman in a high school graduation gown, smiling sweetly for the camera. It was the same as the one pinned to the evidence board upstairs. I’d not looked at it too closely, afraid that I wouldn’t be able to cope if I was confronted with the tangible proof of my failure. 

Katy’s shining eyes, the neatly styled hair, the sweet, excited smile...an eighteen year old on the cusp of her life. Ambitions, hopes, friends, a family...a future. An ordinary life.

_When had my eyes last looked excited? When had I last felt excited for anything?_

I’d zoned out from Katy’s mother who was still mumbling. “...she looks a little like you,” she continued dazedly, and then reached out to touch a strand of my hair. I jerked away, and she retracted her hand as though I’d slapped her. Her cheeks went pink as her eyes focused. She looked horrified. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry...I’m sorry.” I wasn’t apologising for my flinch, but she didn’t understand - taking a step towards me even as I was backing towards the door. “I’m so sorry.” 

I managed to get the door open, slipping through it, and slammed it closed on her startled face.

**

I nearly sprinted down the empty corridor and wrenched open the door to the conference room.

It was empty. The FBI were still briefing most of the precinct downstairs. 

I heaved panicked, shaky breaths. I couldn’t do this. 

My letters were spread out on the table. Twenty years of failure. Twenty years of warnings that I couldn’t make anyone heed.

My eyes flickered up, and Katy’s bland, smiling expression glared down at me. 

Eighteen. Her whole life ahead of her. I’d been the same age when I’d received the first letter. 

Her whole life ahead of her. I dropped my gaze back to the table - to the piles of letters that were the sum total of any sort of life that I’d had. I couldn’t look at her face, couldn’t see what I’d...

 _Look at her,_ he screamed. _Look what you did._

I could hear Spencer’s words echoing in my head, telling me that he wasn’t in my head, it wasn’t his voice, he couldn’t get to me.

But if he couldn’t get to me, how could I get to her? 

_I could get to her._

_I could get to her._

_I could get her._

_I could get her back._

It was simple. It was a choice. 

It had always been a choice. 

**  
I was perfectly calm as I picked up my jacket and looped my purse over my elbow, straightening my shirt and skirt as I considered the reflection in the glass door opposite. I didn’t look exactly fine, but I’d pass. I pulled the compact of pressed powder out of my purse dusting a thin layer over the worst of the red tear tracks, and slicked a layer of lipstick on. 

The next part was about confidence. I needed enough to get back out without sending the desk officer running in for the FBI. I could fake confidence. I’d been doing it my whole life. 

To my surprise, none of them stopped me. I just walked straight through the deserted bullpen, and I was feet from the door when someone called: “hey!” 

I turned, and was relieved to see an officer I’d not seen before. He was chasing after me, and I recognised my hairclip in his hand. 

“You dropped this.”

“Thanks,” I said, with a passable brightness.

“No problem,” he grinned, staring dumbly at me. He was holding a batch of papers in his hand, and the green cover sheet stirred a memory. 

“Hey, do you have a pink sheet of that?” I asked, pointing at the paper. He looked down at the batch, and then around on the floor as if he might have dropped one. 

“Uh, hang on.” He pulled open a cabinet, and found a stack of multicoloured printer paper. 

“Our captain went on a course about how colour stimulates memories. Thought it would help with the paperwork.” He laughed, and I returned an awkward smile as I accepted a couple of leaves, folding them and pushing them into my purse.

“Thanks,” I said, and turned to go. 

“No worries,” he replied, “hey…” 

But I was already halfway through the door, and he gave up when it was clear I wasn’t turning back. I reached into my pocket and turned off my cellphone as I slipped past the waiting room of people waiting their turn to report to the desk sergeant. To my relief, he seemed engrossed in a woman’s statement, and didn’t glance up.

When I was out on the street, I took a deep breath and glanced around, as if he’d suddenly appear in front of me.

That wasn’t how the game worked though, and I hurried down the steps and stepped out into traffic to force a lit taxi to slam on the brakes in front of me. 

“Lady, you coulda just hailed me,” the driver told me, exasperated. 

“Cabs never stop for me,” I snapped, faking the asshole City girl attitude that I hoped meant he would just write me off as another unmemorable jackass fare, “and I’m late. I’ll tip you the fare again if you can get me there early.” I gave him the address as I pulled out the sheaves of pink paper and a pen and pushed a stick of gum into my mouth. 

By the time I ducked out of the car, it was dark out again, and I waited for the cabbie to drive away before I slipped over to the door to my apartment building. I took out the page from my purse and wadded up the gum in my mouth to stick the paper to the glass, leaving the written message facing out to the street.

_Me for her._

I ducked back down the street, keeping my face down and turned into my jacket as I disappeared down into the subway. I could only hope he’d find it before the FBI did. 

I took the most convoluted route I could think of, and only emerged once the train passengers dwindled to a few bar-goers and night shift workers. The financial district was deserted this time of night, but I knew there would be trading floors open for Hong Kong and Singapore. I slipped in through the service entrance and took the back stairs to the elevator. 

By the time I arrived at my own floor, the automatic lights had long since dropped, leaving the floor illuminated only by the emergency lights. I was completely alone, aside from the faint hum of the central air. 

I dumped my purse on my desk and collapsed into my office chair. I switched on one of the TV monitors from the closed exchange to something appropriately asinine on late night television and took a long swig from the champagne bottle I’d been given for my ten years at the company last March.

When you’re about to die, you don’t really give a shit about your boss finding out that you were drinking at your desk in the empty office at 2am. I sat, staring vacantly at the screen without anything in my head but a crushing emptiness blurred on the edges by the beginning of an alcohol burn. 

At twelve minutes past three in the morning, my desk phone rang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oop.
> 
> Drifting into the danger zone now...
> 
> (Re: mixed POVs, I’m actually having a ton of fun with them. It’s the first time I’ve ever used them and I know they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, but they give me so much flexibility and fuck it, we’re on AO3 so anything goes. I started this story in third person and lost interest by the second chapter. I reworked it, wrote it into first person and here we are, 24,000 words later. Let 👏 people 👏 enjoy 👏 writing. )
> 
> Sooooo.... any guesses as to where she’s going next? 
> 
> The next three chapters are written, so I’d be interested to hear your thoughts!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A woman hears a voice she hoped she never would.

I lifted the receiver to my ear, using my other hand to steady the tremble that was half drunk and half terrified anticipation. Twenty years waiting to hear his voice, to put a sound to the violent words that plagued me. 

“Hello?” 

“Hello Anya.” The voice was quiet, deep, painfully ordinary. It sent a chill shuddering down my spine until I was nearly paralysed in my seat. 

I swallowed, hard, digging my nails into the receiver. “I made my choice.” I wanted my voice to be even, level, resigned almost, but I couldn’t muster it. I was a terrified eighteen year old again, reading the first of the violent letters and feeling the terror wrap around her heart and squeeze. It hadn’t ever let up again, not in twenty years. 

“I saw. Such a clever girl.”

“I meant it. Those are the terms of my choice.” I took strength from it, squaring my shoulders. This is for Katy. 

“The choice was simple. It has no conditions.”

“Yes it does,” I hissed. “None of this was about Katy. She was just bait. If you want me, then you want all of me, and I won’t share.”

I heard the delighted laugh, and felt the ice spear through me at the sound of it. “My poor brazen girl.”

“I’m not yours unless you let Katy go.” 

“I will,” he replied, and I jolted back, surprised by the ease with which he agreed to this. “But you’ll have to come to me first.”

“What’s the address?” I asked, pulling a memo pad across my desk. 

He laughed again but this sound was hauntingly hollow. “Oh no. You went to the FBI. You showed them our love. They’re watching for you now.” 

“I gave them the slip,” I insisted.

“You don’t know the first thing about giving anyone the slip,” he spat. “You will do as you are told, and I will get you off that accursed island and safely to me. But if you don’t, or if I sense that you’ve tipped them off, Katy dies.” 

I glanced out at the city below. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

*

I pulled up the collar of the stolen coat, tucking my nose and mouth into it even as the wind whipped at my hair. It smelled of my boss’ expensive cologne, and hung past my knees - a shapeless wool mass as I walked along the harbourside, watching the swaying movement of the boats moored to the jetties as I went. It was nearing five, though I had no watch to confirm it. I’d left it, and my phone and purse beside the empty bottle of champagne on my desk, my jacket draped over the chair, tucking the noted instructions into my hand. 

On a whim, I’d pushed open the door to my boss’s office, stealing his winter coat from the stand behind the door, and the cigarettes he hid from his wife in the top drawer of his desk. Now I held a lit straight in my fingers as I walked, taking a long draw every few steps to try and quell the dizzy nausea roiling in the pit of my stomach. I was grateful I hadn’t eaten all day now, because it would have just come straight back up with the champagne I’d hurled in the gutter. 

Now my head felt clear, but my heart felt more empty than before. 

The tillerman arrived on his bike, and I felt a surge of fear. This was it. Once I was over the bay, I was on his land. 

I could ask the tillerman for help, I could ask him to call the police, tell them where I was, what I’d done. 

_And Katy?_

“Hey,” I called, and he looked up from padlocking his bike to the railing in surprise. “Are you going to Jersey?” 

“Uh, yeah, I am,” he replied, suspiciously. 

“Could I get a lift over? I’ll pay, but I just gotta get home.” 

“You finish late,” he said, but the note of suspicion had faded. 

“Night shift,” I shrugged. “Do what you gotta do.” 

“You need to get an apartment in the city,” he laughed. Apparently my acting skills were up to snuff, because he unlocked the padlock for the chain across the jetty entrance and held it open for me. 

“Can’t afford around here,” I said, attempting a flippant laugh. 

He pointed out his boat, and I stepped aboard. The side to side movement made my churning stomach worse. I couldn’t let on so I simply gripped the edges of the boat and turned my head out to the water.

The tillerman kept up the cheerful chatter, and I engaged just enough of my brain to provide plausible responses. It wouldn’t take long to get over, and the little boat was fast. I just had to hold on until then. 

The boat landed at Hoboken even quicker than I thought it would and the tillerman waved me off as he started loading up the boxes of food he’d be taking back over for the morning breakfast run. It was so painfully ordinary, I could’ve cried. The smell of the fresh pastries followed me on the breeze as I slipped through the deserted harbour, and pushed down the overwhelming sadness that I’d never taste them again. 

The sun hadn’t yet come up, and I rubbed at exhausted eyes. I hadn’t slept in over thirty hours, and my next task was to find a red sedan parked in the harbour parking lot, with keys and a cell phone hidden in the rear wheel. I pulled out the crumpled instruction as I set eyes on the car, checking the license plate against the number he’d recited to me. Connecticut plates. 

I crouched down and twisted my arm around the wheel until I laid my hand on the wrapped package on the inside of the wheel alloy. It started ringing before I’d even torn the paper off. 

“You made good time,” he said, approvingly. “Your next destination is on a map in the glovebox. There’s a set of magnetic plates in the glovebox, put them over the license plates.”

“I can’t drive,” I told him. “There’s no point giving me a car.”

“Don’t play games. I know you can drive. You bought a car for your seventeenth birthday, and you have an active New York driver’s license.”

It was worth a shot. “I haven’t driven in years,” I tried, but he seemed angry now. 

“Then I hope for Katy’s sake that you remember quickly. Toss the phone in the trash.” The call ended, and I threw it across the parking lot. Fuck him. There wasn’t another choice. 

The map was exactly where he’d said it was, and I propped it against the steering wheel. He’d left a red circle around the property. I checked the distance, about eighty miles - over the state line into Pennsylvania, and well into what looked like the middle of a state park. 

I leaned my head back against the headrest, exhausted. An hour plus drive when only the cortisol and adrenaline pumping through my bloodstream mixed with a black coffee from hours ago were keeping me conscious. 

_Maybe he’ll think it’s God’s will if I fall asleep at the wheel and roll. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad._

There was no point stalling any longer. I put the car in drive, and drove carefully out of the lot. 

I kept my speed down as I turned onto the highway. The last thing I wanted was to be pulled over with no registration or proof of insurance. The FBI had probably put out an alert on my name by now, and he’d not left me any fake ID to bypass that. 

Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe they’d taken my bitch fit at the station as read and assumed I’d gone home. They’d had all they wanted from me, I wasn’t useful to them any more. 

I held the wheel with one hand and dug my fingernails into my other wrist until the fuzzy sleepiness had faded into a sharp pain. Have to stay awake. No good to Katy dead. 

I turned the radio up, listening to the inane chatter of morning talk shows - pointless contests, crap music and endless ads. I thought of the stock list I’d neglected - corrected my predictions of the rises and falls in my head, even though they’d be of no use to me now. 

I filled my brain with mindless, inane, pointless thoughts that were anything, anything, except what was waiting for me at the end of the journey. The sun was plenty up now, and I could see the morning dew evaporating over the fields as I drove through them. 

I thought of the friends I didn’t have. I thought about the sad little apartment, growing dusty with disuse, the plain surfaces with a single cup and bowl in the sink. I thought about my mother… before pushing that thought back into the little box I’d made for it. 

I thought of Spencer Reid. 

How funny it was, for him to come back into my life at the end of it, to close a circle I’d left broken. A good man. Someone I might have needed all those years ago - who listened without judgement, and acted with principle. He’d seen awful things - I could see it the unflinching way he read my letters, in the scars he left open to observation. But he was still a good man. I’d seen it in the soft way he spoke, the tiny, insignificant touches to reassure - the crisp honesty to my questions. I’d heard it in the careful way he’d explained their profile of the man I knew - the bitter twisted obsession that sounded ordinary in his voice. That the man who had tormented my life wasn’t new or novel in his method, he was one of a pattern that could be predicted, dissected, profiled. 

They didn’t know him like I did. There was no endgame. There was nothing. 

I dropped my hand into the pocket of the stolen coat, and touched the little package concealed in the pocket, ghosting my fingers over the outline of tiny blade. 

A comfort, a reassurance. 

_This was my endgame._  
*

I was only a few miles out. 

With difficulty, trying to keep one hand on the wheel and an eye on the road, I pried open a few stitches in the hem of my skirt with my fingernail, tugging at the fabric until the threads snapped. I fumbled with the little package in my pocket and tore it open with my teeth, trying as best I could not to slice my fingers on the razor blade that dropped into my lap. Someone must have been watching over me when my boss left his toiletries bag under his desk. 

Gingerly, I took it between thumb and forefinger and pushed it into the hole that I’d made in my skirt. It wasn’t a perfect hiding spot, but it would do in a pinch. I didn’t need it as a weapon for an offensive. I just needed it close to me - ready for the inevitable. 

The larger penknife I’d also stolen from his office I tucked into the strap of my bracelet, wriggling my sleeve down to conceal it. It didn’t need to be hidden for long - just long enough for him not to see it straight away. 

I felt calmer once I was tooled for battle. I switched the radio from talk to music, and let it wash over me as I rolled down the window and let the breeze catch my hair, and the sun warm my face. This was nice. 

A last taste of heaven. 

I glanced back at the map, saw the turnoff, and matched it with the physical counterpart in the distance. The car slowed as I lifted my foot from the accelerator. My heart rate rocketed even as the car slowed to a crawl, inching along the road before coasting to a stop. 

I couldn’t do it. Every part of me screamed in self-preservation to slam my foot down and drive away from the danger - drive for help. 

_But there was no help. Not for me. And for Katy?_

There was just me. I put the car back into drive and took the turn. 

**

I drove over the dirt track, bumping over the road surface at a crawl.

The map told me that I had another half mile of this, and then another turn off. There were no buildings marked - it appeared to be a dead end road in the middle of Penn State Forest. 

I didn’t want to think of the potential consequences of that possibility, so I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and rolled along, peering out to my front left for the turnoff. 

It loomed, and I swallowed the bile that had shot up my throat as I turned the car in. 

A ranger cabin sat back in a tiny clearing, a one room ramshackle affair with an outhouse set further back - all dilapidated and unused. Weeds had grown over the rotten porch and balustrades, wending their way over the wood and forcing themselves through the cracks. A tarp had been thrown over a lean-to garage, but the undergrowth that had grown up like a thick carpet told me that no vehicle had parked here in a long time. 

I unclipped and stepped out of the car. It was deserted. I’d thought he’d be here waiting, but the clearing was only big enough for my vehicle. I’d not seen another car in almost an hour’s driving through the forest - where was he?

I pricked my ears as I heard a faint ringing in the distance, edging unwillingly towards the sound. Another phone was taped to the dusty windowsill. I worked it out from under the tape and slid to accept the call. 

“Why did you stop?” he asked. 

“When?” I replied, confused. “I drove the speed limit. I didn’t want to get pulled over.” 

“No, before you took the turn off.” He must have a GPS tracker on the car. 

“You left me a map,” I hissed. “I needed to check where I was. If you’d left me a GPS I could have been here faster.” 

He seemed placated by my answer, but still suspicious.   
“Go inside.” 

I stayed where I was, and he snarled the instruction again. 

It was as the outside was, old and neglected. A bed without a mattress, a chair under the window, and an old stove with a dusty kettle perched on top. Somewhat incongruously a blanket and candle were sat on the dresser, clean, and fresh, and very out of place. 

“You’ll sleep here,” he told me. “Wait for my next call.” The line clicked dead, and the phone shut off. No manner of pressing buttons or smacking the back would get it to turn back on. I tossed it across the room, watching it bounce over the floorboards. Who would I even call? I was here by choice.

He’d left matches tucked into the blanket and they tumbled to the floor as I shook the blanket out to lay it over the dirty floor, and slipped my arms out of my coat until I could sit underneath it, back against the wall. It was barely noon, I realised, looking up at the sun through the dusty windowpane, and I was as exhausted as if it were midnight. 

I leaned my head back against the wall, and rested my eyes for just a brief second. I wasn’t going to sleep, I just needed to...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok. I have the next two/ish chapters written. And I've just written the climax of the story. So we will have to see if I have the necessary self control to not post it this evening after I've edited it. The struggle.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A woman is in the wind.

_**Spencer** _

I could feel Emily’s eyes boring into me. I kept mine fixed ahead as the car sped through the traffic, lights and sirens blaring into my head like a drill. 

_I should have followed her out. I shouldn’t have left her alone. How could I have not noticed? Now we’d spent the whole night chasing her shadow through the city, always arriving after she’d gone. The note on her door, the subway stops, the hour she’d spent at the office before she’d walked along the waterfront and caught a boat to Jersey. Now she was in the wind._

Emily’s phone buzzed - JJ. 

“What have you got?” 

“Garcia’s got CCTV of her getting off the boat on the Jersey side, but she drops into a dead spot not covered by cameras as soon as she leaves the jetty. She’s checking on any vehicles leaving the area.” JJ’s voice said through the speaker. “And Anya’s company is co-operating, but their calls aren’t recorded. They’re going through to their switchboard now to see if they can trace the caller. Her boss recognised the coat she’s wearing as an old one of his. All her things are here, on her desk - phone, wallet, keys, watch.” 

“Did she leave any sort of note?” I asked. 

“Who would she leave one to?” Suarez asked from the passenger seat. “She’s trying to give us the slip, not send us clues.” 

We both ignored her, and instead strained to hear the background sound at JJ’s end as she rifled through items. 

“Hey,” I heard Alvez say. “Look.” 

“What is it?” Emily asked. 

“She wrote something down on a pad and then tore the page off,” JJ explained, her voice fast. “Luke’s going…”

“Take a rubbing of it,” I said, “put something over it and rub a pencil…”

“We are, Spence, just hold on,” JJ replied, “-ok, is that a…”

“It’s a plate,” Alvez said, “I’m calling Garcia now.” 

My own phone buzzed, and I slid it open to accept Tara’s call. 

“Hey,” I said. 

“We found a shattered cellphone in the parking lot,” she said. “Disposable sim card, shut off hours ago.” 

“JJ’s got a plate,” I told her. “Garcia’s running it now.” I glanced out the window as the SUV turned onto the Turnpike. “We’ll get a tag on the plate on cameras and follow it in.” 

“We’ll stay here in case we’re closer to respond.”

I clicked off the call, and leaned forward to Suarez and the uniform in the front. 

“Do you have an ALPR computer in here?” I asked. Suarez shook her head. 

“Not for Jersey, theirs is dispatcher only. We’ll switch in with them.” 

I opened my mouth to say something to Emily, but was interrupted by the dispatcher crackling through the car radio. 

“...be advised, subject missing person on alert has been located by Pennsylvania State Troopers. All units stand down.” 

“Is that her?” Emily asked, and Suarez picked up the handset to query it, just as my phone rang again. Tara again.

“They’ve found Katy in Pennsylvania,” she said. “She’s alive.”

“What about Anya?” I half-shouted. 

I heard the radio crackling in the background, like Tara was standing next to a cop. A beat. “No. Katy was alone.” 

I felt the rage rip through my chest. Suarez was still on the line with the dispatcher, and the fury was so absolute for a moment that I stumbled on the words. 

To my relief, Emily seemed to share my anger as she lunged out of her seat and snatched the handset from Suarez, pressing down to transmit over the dispatcher. “No unit is to stand down until both subjects are recovered. Put out an APB, right now.” 

I heard the dispatcher retract her previous call and begin reciting the description. 

My phone rang again. Garcia. There was no lightness in her voice, just straightforward urgency. It calmed the anger at the dispatcher’s screw up, and I leaned into the call, trying to even my heart rate. 

“Plates came back stolen, but they flashed up on the ALPR camera going over the state border about five hours ago.”

“Pennsylvania,” I said.

“Mm-hm. But they were on the wrong type of vehicle. Your plate is for a 2002 Dodge Dakota, these plates were on a red Toyota Corolla. One person in the vehicle. I’ve sent it over to NJ and Penn State Police.” 

“They’ve just found Katy,” I told her. “Anya wasn’t there.” 

Suarez glanced round at us. “They’re sending a chopper. Fifteen minutes out.”

“We need to speak to Katy,” Emily told Suarez, who relayed this to the trooper she was speaking to. I turned to Emily. 

“If he has her…” I got no further. We both froze as Suarez stretched her arm back to us, phone in hand. “Katy’s on the line,” she told us. 

I took the phone and held it between us. 

“Katy?” 

“Yes, I’m here.” Her voice sounded small, lost. 

“Katy, my name is Emily. I’m with the FBI.” Emily's eyes flickered to mine, and I nodded.

“Ok.” Her voice got even smaller.

“I know you’ve been through a lot,” Emily said, soothingly, “but we need to find the man who took you.” 

“I know,” Katy said. “I told the officer I didn’t know him. I’d never seen him before.”

“He didn’t mention a name?”

“No. He said I had to call him ‘Father.’” Katy gagged on the words. “I had to call him it, and he said that I was to call her Mother but I never saw her.” 

Emily glanced at me now, frowning. A second unsub didn’t fit the profile at all. “Did you see where he took you?” 

“No - a house I think. I was in the basement. I was always blindfolded.” This was a dead end. 

“We think the person who took you has abducted another woman,” Emily began. 

“He did,” Katy replied, cutting over her. 

“He took her? You saw her?” I asked. 

“He drove us to a cabin in the woods,” Katy said thickly, clearing her throat with a painful cough. “She was there, waiting.” 

“What happened?” Emily asked.

“He pulled me out of the truck,” Katy recalled, “and he said ‘see, we’re all together again.’” 

Emily frowned at me, and I shook my head, confused. Anya had said she didn’t know Katy. “Had you seen her before?” 

“No,” Katy said. ”Never.” 

“What happened then, Katy?” I asked. 

“She came down towards us. She said that I was just bait, that he didn’t want me. That he wanted _her_ , and if he wanted to have her, he had to let me go.” 

I opened my mouth to ask, but Katy ploughed on. 

“He said that I was proof of all that he’d lost, and I had to stay. To make up for lost time. He said that she lost the privilege of making decisions for them because she couldn’t be trusted. And he said that he wouldn’t let either of us go, ever again.” Katy’s voice broke off into a choked sob, but she struggled through without prompting, and I could hear the audible gulp as she swallowed. 

“What did he do?” I asked, a lead weight settling in my gut. 

“ _He_ didn’t. _She_ pulled a knife out of her sleeve and put it against her throat. She said if he didn’t let me go, she’d be dead before she even hit the floor. She said he had to choose now. That it was me or her.” 

I shared an anxious look with Emily as the SUV sped up. 

“He was panicking, saying that this was all wrong, all wrong for his plans. She was ruining his plan. And she was talking over him, shouting at him, telling him that the only way to have her was if he left me there, that it was the only way for her to go with him. And then he threw me down and lunged for her and she screamed at me to run. And I did, and I didn’t stop. Not until I got to the road and stopped a car.” Katy’s sobs were punctuating every other word, and Emily tried to cut through them. 

“How long ago was this? Katy?” 

“I don’t know," Katy choked out, "Maybe an hour?” 

“What was he driving?” 

“A blue truck.”

“Do you know what kind?” 

“No,” she cried, “I don’t know anything. I just had to run!”

“It’s okay,” Emily tried to soothe even as she typed out a frantic message to Garcia. “It’s alright. We’re gonna get you to your mom, okay?” 

But Katy was inconsolable, the only sounds through the line were her pitching sobs. I heard the sound of the phone changing hands and then a man’s voice asking for Suarez. I passed the phone back to her, and looked at Emily. 

“He’s got her,” I said, tensely. “And she’s already disrupted his fantasy once.” 

“If she’s compliant, he might not hurt her. He didn’t hurt Katy.” 

“She used her weapon as a threat to get Katy out. If she…”

“If she’d done it,” Emily said, carefully. “He would have chased after Katy as the proxy.” 

“Those fantasies he wrote… we’re at least an hour behind them. We don’t have a plate, we don’t have a direction, we have nothing.” 

“There’s one road through the park,” Emily said, zooming her tablet in. “State Troopers say Katy was found here,” she pointed at a deserted section. “So they were headed either north west or south east.” She looked up at Suarez. “Get units moving towards this road, pen the unsub in. Garcia’s on cameras for anything resembling that vehicle.” 

Emily’s voice was drowned out by the beating of helicopter blades as the SUV stopped. I had my door open and was out of my seat before Suarez had even unbuckled. I looked over at Emily, shouting over the whip of the blades as we jogged towards the helicopter. “We have to find her.”

“We will,” Emily mouthed, as we climbed aboard. 

My voice wouldn’t carry over the din of the blades, but I didn’t need it. Her eyes told me that the look on my face was enough. 

**

_**Anya** _

My head was still ringing from the blows as he forced me into the backseat of the truck. I moved to kick out, but his hand slammed into my ankle with such force I felt the bone crunch, and a ripping scream force out of my chest. 

“This is wrong,” he hissed. “This is all wrong.” He slammed the door shut and opened the driver’s door, starting up the engine. 

I had to keep him until I was sure Katy was safe. Just had to hold on until then. 

The truck lurched over the uneven turf at too fast a speed, and I slammed around on the truck floor. I groaned as my shoulder thudded into the door, and tried to brace myself against the worst of the bumps. 

It was a relief and a terror as I felt him take the corner and speed out onto the tarmac road. 

I wanted to speak. I wanted to ask him. I wanted to look at him, look at him properly when I didn’t have one eye on the girl he was gripping in both hands. 

I’d been expecting a recognition, for him to be someone I knew, someone I’d seen. How could someone who had known my every movement for every day for twenty years be someone I didn’t know? I’d been distrustful of every person I’d ever met, searching their eyes for any hint that they were more than they said they were, down to the neighbour who said hi every time we bumped into each other in the laundry room, the guy in the bodega who smiled each time I came in - all of them were innocently polite and this fucking animal in the front seat had ruined my trust in anyone. 

“You’ve ruined the plan,” he said again, quietly this time. “Everything will have to be changed.” 

“Why did you want Katy?” I asked, and his eyes shot to mine in the rear view. I saw the animalistic panic, the rabid fear, but I could smell the excitement in his sweat. I tried to push myself upright, propping myself against the zipties he’d bound around my wrists. 

“Be quiet.” 

“No,” I snapped. “You didn’t want a quiet one. Otherwise you would’ve kept her and left me.”

I saw the fire tear through his expression, and braced for another blow. 

“If this is going to be our life now, you can tell me why.” He opened his mouth, as if to quiet me again, but I pressed on. “You didn’t want a submissive little innocent. I was never that, not even at eighteen. You wanted someone who’d fight you. Someone you’d have to break. Otherwise you wouldn’t have chosen me.”

“You wasted so much of our time,” he hissed. “Playing at a lonely life when you could have come to me and had the love you deserved.”

“Why Katy?” I pressed again. “You wanted to what, start over? Try again with someone who wouldn’t fight as long?”

“No!” His voice sounded almost hurt, even as the pitch raised in anger. “You wasted so much time. We could have had them years ago.”

“Could have had what?” I asked, but realisation was dawning. 

“Children!” I swallowed the gagged gasp at the confirmation. “You stole years of my children from me - the children you should have given me. Katy would have been our first, and all the others…”

“You think I would have been able to give you any?” I spat. “When you told me over and over what you wanted to do to…” 

“Mother gives life,” he hissed. “The children… and now you’re too old!”

I almost laughed. “Too old?” It was a broken snarl. 

His voice raised in pitch. “It doesn’t matter. We will find other ways.” 

_Other children._ I couldn’t let him. 

“We don’t need to do that,” I tried, “there’s no reason-“ I swallowed the gag that threatened - “that I couldn’t try. Lots of older women have…” I couldn’t finish, but it appeared to be calming him - his shoulders relaxed slightly, and his knuckles were less white on the wheel. 

Encouraged, I kept my voice at the same soothing pitch but changed the subject before I lost it. “You didn’t tell me why you wanted me. All these years, why not...ask someone else?”

“Because you wanted me,” he replied, “I saw you. I heard you. You looked at me, and I knew..” 

“When?” I whispered, brokenly. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“Yes, you have!” the pitching bellow rocketed through the truck and I flinched, turning my face into the seat cushions but I was thrown forward against the back of his seat as the truck braked sharply. He wheeled round to face me, catching my shirt and dragging me towards him. “You saw me every day. And you never looked at me, but I could just tell you were trying to be coy. How many boys did you defile in that first month, huh? How many times did you come to class giggling with your stupid friend about the parties you went to? They were trying to ruin you and I had to stop them.” 

“I don’t know who you are,” I said, my voice breaking on a sob. “I’ve never met you before.”

“Yes, you have,” he heaved. “You spoke to me.”

“I don’t remember,” I whispered. “I don’t.” 

He dragged me closer, until I could feel his breath fanning over my face.

“You do. Because just before you tried to run away from me, after I’d spent years telling you how much I loved you, protecting you, keeping you safe from boys who didn’t deserve you while you did your best to ruin yourself, sleeping around campus like a licentious little slut...just before you did, you wrote a letter, and you gave it to me.”

“I’ve never written to you. Never. Not before last night.” I insisted, but he didn’t seem concerned by the honesty in my eyes.

“I know you did. Because you gave it to me. To me, into my hands.” He drew me yet closer until his lips were pressed against my forehead in a dark approximation of an affectionate kiss. “And the only letter you ever gave me,” he scoffed a laugh that ruffled my hair and chilled me to my very soul, “wasn’t for me. It was for _Spencer fucking Reid_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if your brain said 'oh shit' at the last line, please tell me.
> 
> because I did, and I wrote it. 
> 
> holy shit, we're suckin' on diesel now!  
> thank you to the guys commenting each time, you make my world.
> 
> also... TWO updates. In ONE day?  
> (yeah, I was way too excited for this chapter to go up)
> 
> a note on the editing, it's not great. I can't use a beta for this fic as it's going up too rapidly for it to be fair on the poor sod trying to check it, so if you spot something that doesn't look quite right, drop me a DM and I'll sort it out.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A last choice. The only choice.

I blinked, shaking my head as if underwater. 

The faintest, vaguest traces of a memory stirred: an empty office, a pressing deadline…

“You took the letter,” I realised. “You said he was away, and I didn’t want to leave the letter...in case you stole it from his pigeonhole.” I choked out an incredulous laugh. “Is that where you found me? Caltech?”

“You didn’t take my class seriously,” he hissed. “You sat at the back and read books. You were so smug and confident that you’d pass.” 

“You didn’t teach my class. I’d remember.” I shot back, searching through my memories. I was certain that I would have remembered him as a lecturer. But I hadn’t remembered his face as the grad student so my memory clearly wasn’t to be trusted.

“Yes, I did,” he replied, but he’d turned back to the road. “I was the TA for the Intro to Mathematics class.”

I wouldn’t have noticed the TA. I didn’t even remember the dumb class. Intro to Math was a joke, a waste of a class period. In my smug teenage ambition, I’d wanted to be a world-class economist - did they seriously think they’d need to introduce me to basic calculus? He was right, I hadn’t taken it seriously. But the white knuckles were back, and I sensed that an offensive was not the best way to go. 

“I’m sorry,” I said, injecting honesty into my voice. “I was a dumb kid who thought she knew everything. I just wanted to study economics. I didn’t want to do any of the intro classes.”

“I watched you,” he said. “Every class. Every time you came to class hungover, or in last night’s clothes. Every time you were late to class. The times you didn’t show at all. And I knew, I knew that you were crying out for my guidance, for my headship.” 

“You never said a word to me,” I said, pushing myself up with my bound hands. 

“You needed me!” he erupted. “You ruined yourself, over and over with undeserving men. And then - him.” 

I stared at him, and he met my eyes in the mirror again. 

“He was a kid. A show off,” he scoffed. “Full of dumb facts and no purpose. Couldn’t even focus on one degree at a time, but he had the whole department eating out of his damn hand.” 

“You were jealous of him,” I realised, and yelped as he lunged at me, bringing down a sharp blow across my face. 

“You ruined his innocence too,” he spat. “The only tolerable thing about Reid was his inability to pick up girls. But I had to watch you, flirting,” he forced through gritted teeth. “You barely gave him time to finish his coffee before you’d wormed into his bed. I had to watch...” 

The realisation dropped like a penny into a fountain. 

“There was nobody else in that cafe,” I realised, choking on the words. “Wendy let us stay late. You mean wa-.”

“My own reality television show,” he smiled, turning the truck back onto the road. “Watching your life.”

“You used the security cameras,” I said, coldly. “That’s how you watched me. How you knew what I was doing. What I was wearing - who I was with.” 

“I was the best,” he sneered. “Nobody could write better encryption keys than me. All the cheap little security systems with two bit encryptions? It was so easy. So easy.”

“You’re a hacker,” I said, flatly. “You weren’t anywhere near me. You weren’t following me. You’re just a voyeur.” 

“My eyes are everywhere,” he replied, smugly. “I gave you the choice to come to me, but I needed to make sure you weren’t ruining yourself in the process.” 

I bit back the urge to be sick. “No. Because you knew what I was doing even when I didn’t leave my apartment building for days. You didn’t just use CCTV - you put cameras inside my apartment.”

He nodded, and I wanted to scratch the look of pride out of his eyes with my fucking nails. “Sound too. So much more rewarding.”

I thought of that stupid little box apartment. How it had felt like safety - tucked away from the world in the safe little corner I’d carved out for myself. But he was inside it, worming his way through those walls until I had not even the peace of my own mind to retreat to. 

I tilted my head back against the seat, trying to inhale past the urge to scream. I couldn’t break now. 

“Where are we going?” 

He glanced at me, and shook his head. “You took too long. You spoiled the plan. You let Katy go - they’ll be looking for you now. I can’t let them find you.” 

“They won’t look for me,” I said, and the belief in my own words ripped a hole in my heart. “They’ve never looked for me. Nobody has.” 

“They want to take you from me.”

“They’re not looking for me!” I cried out. “They just wanted Katy back. I went to find you, they’ll say that I consented to this,” I broke on the last word. “That I chose it.”

He shook his head again. “I can’t let them find you. I won’t. We are certain of life in the hereafter.”

_The hereafter._

He was going to kill me. Those violent, ripping fantasies… they were going to happen. To me. 

The nightmares that had plagued me, they were just glimpses into my future now. My end would not be swift, it would be in fire and sheer fucking agony. I’d read those words enough times to have them seared into my head. 

_No._

_This is my endgame._

I shifted my hands, flexing them against the zip tie to try and encourage the blood flow into the numb digits... and froze as I felt the pressure lift, just a little. I tested it, and felt the tie give further, slipping down until it was pressing into my wrist bone rather than digging into the skin.

_He’d zipped them the wrong way._

_The teeth weren’t locking._

I tugged my wrists apart gently, and the tie slipped down to my knuckles. I bit down on the hitch in my breathing - the hope. If we were driving towards the city, I could just wait for him to slow and then jump out of the vehicle. Scream for help. Run. 

But what then? Would he chase me, with witnesses? Would he drag me back into the truck? 

I glanced down at my ankle, flexing the foot and biting down on the scream as pain lanced up my leg. 

Would he drive away? Leave me free, but… 

He’d disappear. They’d search for him, in that half-hearted way that cops do when nobody is _really_ in danger. 

_But I was Nobody. I was in danger._

He’d never stop. The letters would keep coming. He’d wait - bide his time.

I thought of the blade concealed in my hem. Could I kill him? _Could I really kill him?_

_Him or me. Him, or you._

It was a moot point. I slipped my hand against my skirt and nearly howled in despair. The hem was empty. The blade must have slipped out when he’d dragged me over the forest floor. 

He began to accelerate and I chanced a look back. Nothing was following us. No cop cars, lights and sirens screaming, coming to save me at long last. No helicopter, chasing down a high speed pursuit. There was just an empty road. 

Nobody was ever going to come and save me. 

They never had. They never would. 

Twenty years. The longest relationship I’d ever had with anyone. The only one, and it was with a homicidal stalker. I wanted to laugh. Two empty lives, each consumed by the other. The sum total of nothing. A wasted life. 

And at the end of it all, it was as it had always been. 

_Him... and me._

I made my choice. 

I lunged through the gap in the seats, barely processing his shocked cry. My hands locked onto the steering wheel, and wrenched down, hard. 

The truck lurched sideways, pitching wildly, and I saw the tarmac rushing up to meet us. 

The world rolled in a mess of glass and screeching metal, a kaleidoscope of black tar and blue sky. 

I was floating, and then I was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End. 
> 
> NO WAIT. I'm totally kidding. I just wanted to see the state of the comments if I did. 
> 
> More like end of Part One. 
> 
> Our girl has realllllly fucked it now. But what else could she do? 
> 
> Probably no chapter tomorrow, next chapter will be posted 2PM EST on 02/08. I'm hoping to churn out some decently lengthened chapters as we start to deal with the fallout of this, so that should give me enough time to do it!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A softness is found.

**Spencer**

I couldn’t hear anything over the pounding heartbeat in my mouth and the dispatcher’s voice through the chopper intercom.

 _All units be advised, BOLO vehicle reported overturned. I-70,Medford Lakes. EMS and FD responding. We were going to be too late. We were always too late._

I thought of Lewis and Simmons, pelting towards the site in their vehicle, still miles away. 

JJ, back in New York, tracking the call.

Garcia, listening to the scanner. 

They all knew that this was personal now, there was no hope in hiding it. 

The helicopter set down beside the interstate, next to a red liveried medevac aircraft. The stretcher on the back was empty, and we sprinted past it, towards the mass of emergency vehicles surrounding the truck. It had come to rest across the midline of the road, resting on it’s driver’s side. The windscreen was shattered, and I could see the firefighters readying the tools to cut it away. 

A police sergeant stepped in front of us before we could get any closer, holding up a hand to stop us. I looked at him, incredulous, and then down at my windbreaker and vest. What did he think this was?

“Male driver is unconscious.” Oh. “Serious head injuries. They’re cutting him out now, EMS doesn’t want to shift his spine at all. Female passenger…”

‘Is she alive?” I asked, before I could stop myself, and felt a wave of dizzying relief as the sergeant nodded. 

“She climbed out of the vehicle before we were on scene. She’s banged up pretty bad, but she won’t let anyone near her,” he explained, but I’d already spotted her and nothing else suddenly mattered. 

I left Emily to the sergeant, brushing past his half-hearted block as I surged through the crowd of first-responders. 

She was standing - _standing_ … after crawling out of that… - at the side of the melee, watching on with an emotionless expression. Blood was trickling down her temple from a cut under her hairline, and was forming a stain on her shirt as it dripped down her chin and over her throat. Superficial glass cuts had pocked the skin on her cheek, and her eye was already blossoming into a swollen bruise. Her left arm was cradled in her right and the uneven slump of her shoulder told me that it was probably dislocated. I could see her resting her weight on one leg, balanced precariously with the other foot resting lightly on the floor. 

She looked broken. She looked so blessedly whole. 

She looked like a stiff breeze would knock her over, and at the same time as though no force on earth could compel her to shift an inch. _Indomitable._

I approached her, from the front. She gave no indication that she saw me, her eyes fixed on the overturned truck.

“Hey,” I said softly. 

“Is he dead?” she asked, her voice hoarse. 

“No,” I replied. “He’s not good though.”

“I thought I’d killed us both,” she murmured. “I was sure of it.” 

I looked back at the truck, and then at her. 

“Did you flip it?” 

She nodded. “I wasn’t going to die like the letters. I was going to die on my own terms, and take the bastard with me.” 

I swallowed. So nearly too late. _Or am I still?_

“He’s not going near you again,” I crouched slightly, afraid to touch her for fear of causing more discomfort. To my relief, she looked up and met my gaze. “I promise you. He is never going near you again.”

I saw the flicker of hope behind her eyes, and then the familiar wary distrust. I got in first before she could lock down, turn away. 

“I am not going to stop until he is locked away. I will…”

“Do you know who he is?” 

“What?” I shook my head. “No. Not yet. But we'll find out. My team…”

She shook her head. She wasn’t asking. “He worked with you,” she said, and her eyes were back on the truck. “At Caltech. That’s where he saw me. He was a postgrad. In your department.”

I looked back at the truck, filtering through my memory for the graduate students. I’d never paid them much mind. I shook my head. “I don’t…”

“When I left, I went to your office to say goodbye,” she said, and I started in surprise. “I thought it was too mean to just up and disappear, but when I got there, there was a postgrad who said that you’d gone back to Vegas for an emergency.”

I shook my head. I hadn’t been back to Vegas for months when we’d slept together. The whole thing with the sanitarium was still too new and raw and painful to go home. I’d buried myself in my work, and then in preparing for the FBI, and for a brief shining night...with her. 

She choked out a laugh, and I could see the wince of pain as she grimaced, screwing up her eyes and dropping her hands to press against her stomach. She was shielding some abdominal injuries, and I glanced helplessly back towards EMS. 

“I wrote you a letter,” she gasped, and the laugh broke off into a sob of pain. I couldn’t tell if it was the emotional catharsis or actual physical discomfort, so I stepped closer. “A completely jackass, emotionless letter thanking you for your _help._ And then I gave it to him to give to you.”

“I didn’t get a letter,” I murmured. “I didn’t go anywhere. I just…” Her words registered just a fraction of a second behind the words spilling out of my mouth. 

She’d said goodbye. She’d tried to. And he had ruined it for us both. 

“He was in my life for such a brief, insignificant moment, I never thought of him again. And it was him...all this time...” 

She shuddered again, gritting her teeth. I felt so pathetically helpless. I could do nothing for her, nothing to ease her clear physical discomfort and emotional turmoil. I wanted to hold her, to wrap my arms around her and never let her go, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t...

I slipped my windbreaker off and draped it around her shoulders, mindful of her injured arm. She leaned into my touch, and then leaned into me, pressing her forehead against my chest. I froze - terrified of hurting her, and overjoyed at the feeling of her finally, finally relinquishing a tiny bit of her terror of trust. I placed my hand on her uninjured arm, rubbing a tiny circle into it. 

A little voice needled in the back of my mind, telling me that it wasn’t me that she wanted, it was the authority of safety that my position provided, a transference of painful emotions that would attach onto the nearest body. I booted it away. Whatever she needed, I’d give her, and to all hell with the consequences.

When she lifted her head, I could see the exhaustion beyond anything else. The fight had waned, and I could see that she just wanted to crawl off somewhere to sleep. 

“Will you go with EMS?” I asked. “I need them to take a look at your head.” She glanced down at her shirt, as if startled by the blood, and then across at the waiting EMT. I saw her chew over the decision, casting her eyes back to the truck once more. I squeezed her arm gently. “He’s going nowhere except to a bed he’ll be handcuffed to until he’s tossed into a cell.” I promised, and she took a steady breath. “He will not get near you. I promise.” 

She looked back at me, and I saw the exhaustion, the panic, the deep seated fear… and a tiny light, so faint I might not have noticed had I not been searching for it. 

She nodded, and I waved the EMT over, keeping my other hand on her arm, for myself more than for her. 

_Hope. It was small, but it was there._

**

It was late, but JJ had long since given up trying to convince me to get some sleep, even offering to stay at the hospital in my place until I’d taken some rest. I’d refused her each time. I couldn’t be anywhere else. 

The hallway was deserted but for the occasional shuffle of movement from the nurses’ station. I’d found a seat outside Anya’s room, and a cup of lukewarm coffee that I’d been sipping from for several hours, and had settled in for the night. 

It was almost thirteen hours since the crash. 

After agreeing to a brief check, she had reluctantly consented to climbing onto the stretcher in the back of the ambulance for the EMT to check her over properly. He was worried about her arm and her ankle, and she’d given in to his pleading, but had kept her grip on my arm to pull me with her. I’d climbed in after her, and sat quietly beside her head, close but not touching, as the EMT checked over her injuries. Both he and I had winced in unison as he’d pushed up her shirt to reveal a vivid bruise bisecting her abdomen, luridly purple and stretching from her ribs to her hips but Anya had kept her eyes fixed onto the roof of the ambulance, teeth gritted and not allowing an inch of sound. 

She’d climbed out of the damn truck with internal injuries. _She’d climbed out and walked away…_

They’d left me in the ER. _Family or next of kin only. Is she under arrest?_

Under arrest? Curled up on a trolley with a dislocated arm and an FBI windbreaker draped over her?

 _No, she’s not under arrest. She’s under protection._ They’d become officious at that, insisting there was no need for me to stay, that visitors were screened. They hadn’t gotten far with that particular approach. Actually, they hadn’t gotten anywhere at all, and I had planted myself on a chair outside the room they’d moved her to. Eventually, they’d resigned themselves to the inevitable and had let me be with nothing more than judicious nods as they passed. 

It had been eight hours since they’d moved her, thirteen since the crash, and a good thirty or so since I’d last slept. But I couldn’t. My body was exhausted, flagging as I rested my forearms on my knees, dangling the cup of cold coffee in my hands, even closing my eyes but my mind would not shut off. It raced, even now with the possibilities. 

We knew the unsub’s name, his background, and the local PD were scratching together a report into his whereabouts for the last seventeen years. I’d called the department head at Caltech myself and asked him to pull his HR file and to email it to Garcia. 

I’d known this unsub. And like Anya, I’d not paid him any mind. His name had scratched a vague memory but nothing definitive. We’d both glided across him as no indicator of a threat, even trusting him, as he destroyed her life, and altered mine too. I’d thought so badly of her when she’d disappeared. I’d felt used - abhorrently used, and the time we’d spent together felt tainted. I’d spoken poorly of her, thought worse of her, and been aggravated by the fact that I still found the memory of her attractive. And now, it turned out that even despite the reaction it would provoke, she’d tried to stay goodbye. Tried to prove that it had been more than a cheap roll in the hay, thought of my feelings before her own. She’d dressed and undressed in the dark, crawling back into my bed to hold me. She’d thought of me when retrieving her letters, offering to keep my privacy from the team.

And then, and then, _and then_ … she’d run off into the night, hell bent on a suicide mission to save a girl she’d never met. I thought of the note we’d found. Me for her. Never choosing the path of least resistance, always choosing something that didn’t make sense and made perfect sense at the same time. A story of contradictions, and a life lived in spite of all that had been thrown at it. 

I wanted her. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to be twenty-one again, and armed with the knowledge my thirty-nine year old self now knew. I wanted to wake as she slipped out of bed that morning. I wanted to be waiting for her as she left the letter for me. And more than anything, I wanted to tell her that this hell would have an end, and I would be right there with her as she found her way out of it and into the life she deserved. I wanted to tell her...

A nurse poked her head out of Anya’s room, glancing up and down the empty hallway until she found me, sitting almost next to her. 

“What’s your name?” she asked, and I blinked. Me?

“Uh, Spencer,” I replied. She ducked back into the room, and I heard soft voices conferring. The door opened again, and she beckoned me towards her. 

“She’s very tired,” the nurse said, fixing me with a look that told me she wasn’t keen on letting me in. “Don’t ask any questions. It can wait till morning.” 

I nodded obediently. Collecting Anya’s statement was the last thing on my mind as the nurse let me into the room, and closed the door behind me. 

She looked like she’d gone ten rounds in a boxing ring, but she cracked an exhausted half smile as she saw me that sent a warmth flooding through my soul. 

“Hey,” she said, as I came to sit beside her. 

“Hi,” I replied. I wanted to reach for her hand, but I hesitated, leaving mine on the sheets beside her. She saw my hand twitch and reached down with her unstrapped arm to lace her fingers through mine.

“You stayed,” she murmured. 

“I wasn’t going anywhere,” I replied, brushing her palm with my thumb. 

The room lapsed into a peaceful stillness as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back into the pillows. I thought she had fallen asleep, and was about to slip out to give her her privacy when she squeezed my hand. 

“Is he dead?” 

It was the question I’d been waiting for her to ask. “No,” I replied softly. “He’s still alive.”

“Good,” she said, to my surprise. 

“I thought you wanted…” I began carefully, but her eyes opened and found mine. 

“If he dies, I don’t get answers. I don’t get to know why, or how, or how much he knew.” Her head turned away as she swallowed. “Even if it means living with the knowledge that he’s still out there. At least now I know who he is.” 

“My team is working on the profile. They will, in the morning,” I corrected. She glanced around, and I realised what she was looking for. “It’s almost midnight,” I said. 

“I thought it was your team’s job to build a profile to find him?” she asked, curiously. “You already have him.” 

“Thanks to you,” I said. “But we do profile for research purposes too. A long term stalker, his characteristics might be useful if we need to find another one.”

She blinked at me, and then finished the sentence that I couldn’t. “And my characteristics. To see if there was anything that drew him so strongly to me.” I nodded, slightly guiltily. She shrugged, and winced as she jarred her re-set shoulder. “Might be interesting to know why.” 

“We’d look at Katy too,” I said, by way of a fairly pathetic mitigation. “And only at your life in terms of what we needed to know. Nothing invasive.”

“He wanted Katy because I didn’t give him children,” she explained flatly, and the profiler part of my brain started ticking over wildly before I shushed it. Analysis could come later. “And my whole life is an open, boring book, just like I said. I’ve not done anything of note, or had any great…” she trailed off. 

I brought my other hand up to our entwined hands. 

“It can wait until morning,” I said, softly but firmly. “You need to sleep.” 

“So do you,” she retorted, lifting our hands to touch the bags under my eyes with the back of my finger. I rubbed them obediently and scoffed. 

“No chance of that happening,” I said quietly. I wouldn’t sleep if I went back to the hotel. I wouldn’t be able to get the bottomless feeling out of my stomach when I’d realised she was gone for a long time to come.

“Me neither,” she said, honestly. “Every time I close my eyes, I can feel the truck rolling and I jerk awake again.”

“They can give you something to help you sleep,” I said, shifting up to the call button, but she squeezed my hand until I sat back down. 

“I don’t want anything,” she said. “I don’t want to feel...helpless.”

“You won’t be. He won’t get to you here,” I said. He wasn’t out of surgery at the last update, he wasn’t a threat.

“No, not just about him.” She shook her head, grimacing as she tried to find the words. “I’ve spent so long not trusting anyone… I don’t know how to turn that off.”

“Yet,” I said, quietly. “It will come.” She looked at me, and I tried to make the honesty as open as I could manage. I’d seen her eyes lingering on the scar on my forearm, and the neater one on my neck. I hoped it was enough to convey the authority on the point. 

“Will you stay?” she asked, and I was surprised by the open, albeit tired, strength in her voice. “We can sit and not sleep together.” She snorted quietly at her own innuendo and I cracked a helpless smile. 

Her blanket had slipped down, and in a daring move, I reached down to pull it back over her. The fabric under my fingers was the usual over starched cotton of hospital blankets but something underneath rustled as I pulled at them. 

My windbreaker was spread over her, hidden under the blankets. 

“Do you want it back?” she asked quietly, but I shook my head. 

“It’s fine where it is,” I replied, and felt the gentle squeeze of her hand in response. I settled back into the hospital chair, drawing it closer to the bed so I could sit back and keep my hand in hers. The room drifted into that comfortable stillness as I closed my eyes, just resting the tired ocular muscles for a moment as I enjoyed the restful air of knowing that she was safe, and beside me, and in my arms as much as her injuries and our tentative closeness would allow. I drifted. 

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so it turns out that I take one day off and change the entire fucking arc of the story. Go me. 
> 
> Hopefully it's not a bad tradeoff, as it brings up some sweet relationship building and maaaaaaybe some very near future smut? Who knows, you heard nothing.
> 
> Thank you as always for the lovely comments. I literally realised today that they're not chronological (i.e. new comments on the last page, it depends which chapter you're commenting on) so I may have missed some - I always try and reply, so if I have, ping me another on the latest chapter!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a beginning.

Spencer slept. I couldn’t. 

I alternated between hot and cold, numb and emotional, breaking into a fevered sweat and then a shivering mess hunkered underneath the blankets. Twice, a nurse had poked her head into the room in response to an elevated heart rate. The first time, I’d waved her away, mouthing about a nightmare, but the second time she’d let herself in and come to the bed on the pretext of checking the monitors. 

She’d looked suspiciously at Spencer but I’d shaken my head.

“I can make him leave, honey,” she’d said. 

“I don’t want him to,” I’d explained in a whisper. “It’s not him, it’s me. I can’t…”

“Do you want me to page the doctor?” she’d asked, her eyes sliding over to where our hands were still tangled together. “He can get you something to help…” 

“I don’t want anything,” I’d said firmly. “I just…” I blinked up at her. “Can you get me a cellphone?” 

“Do you want me to call someone?” she’d asked. 

I opened my mouth to reply, and then thought better of it. Not now. 

“I just need to sort some things out. I need to call my building super, and my boss...and…” It was the cameras. I couldn’t get the idea of the cameras out of my head. It was making my skin crawl. I felt unclean, dirty, exposed. I couldn’t rest, I needed to know...I needed to know he wasn’t watching me. 

“Honey, it’s almost four in the morning. We can call them later on,” she soothed placidly. “It can all wait until you’ve had some sleep. I can ask for some…”

“No,” I said, insistently. “I don’t want anything.” It was childish, but I turned my face away - ending any further conversation. She sighed, and reminded me to push my call button if I wanted anything before mercifully excusing herself from the room. 

“Who did you really want to call?” Spencer asked, and I almost jumped a foot in the air. 

“How long have you been awake?” 

“Since the nurse came in,” he said, and then glanced me over. “Did you get any sleep?”

I met his eyes and he saw the honesty in my answer as I shook my head.  
“What can I do?” he asked, and I heard the pain in his voice breaking it. “What will help?”

“Being here is enough,” I murmured, turning onto my side to face him. “I haven’t had… It’s nice.” I trailed off lamely. He seemed mollified by the openness, but his spidey-Fed senses were clearly sounding off that I was holding something back. 

“Tell me,” he said, softly, but I could hear the order behind it. “Please.”

Here it was. Trust. Could I trust him?

“He put cameras inside my apartment.” Yes. Yes I could. “I didn’t know. And I can’t get past the idea that they’re still there. I know it’s stupid…”

His eyes darkened as he sat forward, cradling my hand in both of his. “It’s not stupid. It’s not.” He reached up to brush the hair from my forehead, and both of us trembled at the sudden intimacy of the action. 

It felt as though we were both two different people. Spencer, the boy I’d slept with, and the FBI agent, and Anya, the girl he’d slept with, and the stalker’s victim. There was a line that one pair couldn’t cross and the other pair were dancing back and forth over it. It was an odd situation, but I gathered we were both used to those. 

“He’s in the hospital too. He’s not watching. I know that. But, I can’t get the thought out of my head.” 

Instead of the soft reassurance I’d expected him to reply with, he reached into his pocket and drew out his phone, hitting a number on his contacts and lifting the phone to his ear. I opened my mouth to stop him - it was four in the damn morning, the nurse was right, I should wait until morning…

“Hey Garcia,” he said, as the person answered. “No, we’re okay…” He glanced at me. “She’s fine. We need you to look into something.” I cocked an eyebrow at the ‘we,’ and he ducked with an embarrassed half smile. “The unsub wired cameras at her apartment and we need to know if there’s a way they can be… Really?...No, that’s great. Ok...Yeah, I will…” Something Garcia said made him press the phone closer to his ear to muffle the sound, and even in the low light I could see the tips of his ears reddening. “No...I don’t. Thanks Garcia!” He ended the call, and I smiled as I saw the slight flush on those pretty cheekbones. A girlfriend perhaps? 

“Garcia got you all hot and bothered?” I asked, and the easy tone surprised even me. It felt natural, comfortable even, slipping back into that old voice that should have been rusty with disuse. 

“Not like that,” he replied, with a soft huff of laughter. “She likes to tease and torment when she’s woken up at four in the morning.”

I looked down, the ease lost. “Sorry.”

“Hey, no,” Spencer said, placing a finger underneath my chin to tilt it back up. “This is what we do. Sometimes the call comes in at lunchtime, sometimes it comes in in the early hours of the morning. We deal with it.” 

“It’s not like there’s even anyone watching,” I protested. 

“That’s what we want to find out,” Spencer said quietly. “Garcia’s the best at this. She’ll find them.”

I rested back on the pillow, feeling like an absolute asshole. 

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, hollowly. “I can’t go back there. Not now.”

“We’ll remove all the cameras. All of them,” Spencer tried, but I shook my head. 

“He’s been inside my apartment. He’s walked around, fitting cameras and microphones into the place I thought was safe. It’s _tainted_ now.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “My whole life is tainted by him.” 

“Not all of it,” Spencer said quietly, and his fingers brushed lightly over my wrist. 

I shook my head and turned away. I didn’t want to explore that explosive can of worms right now. Thankfully, Spencer seemed to understand, and he didn’t press the point. 

Thirty-eight. Twenty years of hell to unpack, and years left of living to come to terms with. If Spencer was telling the truth, I’d never see another letter. A new life. 

_Who would that person be?_

“What’s his name?” I asked, startling us both. I hadn’t cared before, but now…

“Joseph Keller,” Spencer answered immediately. “He was a CompSci doctoral candidate, working as a researcher for the Mathematics department in their coding research.” 

_What’s in a name? A Rose by any other name would still send your breathing into a panicked spiral until black spots were swimming in front of your eyes._

_A great deal was in a name._

“It feels more real when he has a name,” I confessed quietly. I couldn’t organise my thoughts. They seemed...panicked - urgent. I couldn’t focus…

“I was... abducted once,” Spencer said quietly, deliberately pulling me out of the turmoil of my head. All thoughts of him...Keller...instantly quelled, as if the thoughts themselves were turning to face Spencer in frank and open curiosity. “Well, more than once but this was the first time.” 

I gazed openly at him, and I could see the effort it was taking him to keep his eyes on mine. 

“His name was Tobias. He had a form of dissociative identity disorder - multiple personalities inhabiting the same physical person.” He swallowed. “There was...a lot. And it changed me. And sometimes remembering his name is hard. It brings up unwanted memories and that can be difficult to process. And other times, remembering his name is what brings me out of the difficult memories. It reminds me that he was just a human being. Not the demon my memory builds him up into when I let it.” 

“Is he dead?” I whispered. 

Spencer nodded. “But,” he said, contemplatively. “I think, even if he wasn’t - that part I’d still remember.” 

“ _I’ll be gone in the dark_ ,” I recalled softly. “ _Open the door. Show us your face. Walk into the light_.” Rachel had sent it to me, her true crime obsession both disturbing and understandable. I’d been struck by it, and by the hope it had borne. 

Spencer fixed me with a look so soft I had to duck away from his gaze. 

“I want to talk to him,” I said quietly. Spencer shifted uncomfortably. I jumped back in before he could protest. “I need to know why. Properly why.”

He seemed torn, and I knew the FBI part of his brain was telling him to say no - that it wasn’t appropriate, or wasn’t allowed… and then the Spencer part of his brain that hadn’t lied to me once and had told me the whole truth when others wouldn’t pulling him in the opposite direction. 

“When he comes out of surgery,” Spencer said, carefully. “We’ll see what we can do. His lawyer may say no.” I felt the pit of sickness bubbling up. It would go to trial. 

_It would go to trial. I would have to go to trial. He might… he might get off. He might be set free._

_**Fuck.** _

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all of the bonus points for knowing anya's quote. what a book. there's certain lines in literature that send shivers up my spine. they're not the most beautiful, or the most poetic, but I'll be able to recite them verbatim when i'm 90. 
> 
> one is the end of noughts and crosses - the very first I ever found. one is from wild - 'I put her bones in my mouth and swallowed her whole' (makes way more sense in the context) and then sometimes they come out of nowhere. "i'll be gone in the dark." "step into the light." hoo. 
> 
> this is short. the next one is sweet, but I need to write some serious emotion as a build up for something special........... nudge, wink.


	15. Chapter 15

He’d been as good as his word. Garcia had gone to my apartment and stripped out all twelve of the cameras - including the one in my bathroom that Spencer had reluctantly revealed, and then waited quietly outside the door to the bathroom as I emptied the contents of my stomach. 

They’d gotten warrants for his house in Philly, and an apartment in downtown Manhattan and they were stripping his life apart, piece by piece. No stone was left unturned, except for any cached video files in his hard drive. Those were exclusively in the custody of one Penelope Garcia, who was going to extract and lock anything from Camera Three and Camera Eight - my bedroom and bathroom. Spencer had been inches from my eyes as he’d promised this. 

_They will never be viewed_ , he’d said, in a voice that was akin to a vow. _Garcia will destroy any trace of them as soon as we get the ok to do so from the judge._

 _It doesn’t matter_ , I’d said. _They’ve already been viewed._

 _That was outside your control_ , he’d said. _This is not._

I’d discharged myself from the hospital after one more sleepless night, batting off all protestations to the contrary. Spencer had cornered me, and pleaded with me to reconsider, but I’d held firm. I needed sleep, and I needed a lock on the door. 

He’d relented, and a hotel room back in New York was arranged for me, pending the release of my apartment as a crime scene. I’d told them that I was never setting foot in it again, and asked for a small bag of things - pyjamas, work clothes, toiletries, my laptop - to be taken out. An officious FBI liaison had tried to tell me that they couldn’t release anything from the scene until they’d finished processing it - probably in a couple of days or so. Spencer had said nothing in front of me, but I’d watched him walk the man out of the room, and close the door behind him. 

When they returned, the liaison asked for an itemised list of things that I wanted, and promised to have them signed out within the hour. He’d all but sprinted out of the room and Spencer watched him go with a set to his jaw. 

I hid a smile as I turned away on the pretext of adjusting the sling on my arm. He saw straight through me. 

“What?” he asked, his voice lightening at the sight of my smile. 

“Nothing,” I lied, biting down on the all out grin that threatened. “Just curious as to your preferred brand of fear of God.”

“My- oh.” He ducked his head. “He just needed a reminder, that’s all. It’s still your home.”

“I’m not going back,” I said, firmly. “It was my home. It’s not now.” 

Spencer pursed his lips, but I hadn’t relinquished the point all day and he knew it was a lost battle. As much as it pained me to try and find another apartment in the most competitive market in North America, I’d take it. I couldn’t even imagine being back in that place - even knowing that the cameras were long gone. 

It was an odd feeling - the listlessness that had followed. 

I’d thought there would be at least some semblance of relief, maybe anger, maybe joy… I hadn’t anticipated feeling nothing at all. 

_How? How could there be nothing?_

“Tell me,” Spencer said again, and I wondered what expression I’d left for him to see straight through me. I wasn’t ready for someone else to climb into my head and start prodding around, so I shook my head.

“Nothing,” I replied. “I just want a shower.” 

He twitched, as if dying to call the lie out for what it was. He'd tried once already today, and I watched his body slump in resignation. “I’ll drive you.”

The silence between us in the car was palpable. I could almost hear the questions churning through his head, and I was certain the reason he wasn’t asking was because he could hear the ringing silence in mine. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he fished it out, answering without checking caller ID. 

“Reid,” he said, his tone relaxing as he recognised the voice on the other end. “yeah, we’re on our way over...ok.” A long pause as he listened to the caller, and then an “Ok” as he ended the call. 

“What is it?” I asked, tentatively edging over the silence. 

“Keller’s awake,” Spencer said quietly. 

“Oh,” I said, keeping my voice flat. “Ok.” 

“Nothing’s going to happen just yet,” he said quickly, misreading my tone for anxiety. “There’s still a full investigation to be launched.”

“What was the other thing?” I asked, watching him shift uncomfortably. “You said OK twice.”

“We have another case. We wouldn’t usually take one so quickly, but…”

He was leaving. 

“When are you going?” I asked, the evenness in my tone dissipating as I considered the realities of the situation. He wasn’t my boyfriend, God knows he wasn’t even my friend, and the night he’d spent at my bedside was nothing but a custody detail. I had technically interfered with an investigation. I’d also rolled a car, with the deliberate intention of killing someone, that I had then, in a display of _breathtaking_ stupidity, _admitted as much to a fucking Fed._

“We need to wrap up here first,” Spencer said, and I could hear the bitterness in his voice. _Frustration?_ Was the cleanup from my mess taking him away from a more interesting case?

“You can drop me at the hotel and go back to the precinct,” I said quietly. “Or here. It’s only a couple of blocks.” 

“I’m not dropping you anywhere,” he said, but the frustration was still evident in his tone. 

He’d been as good as his word, even following me up to the room. 

“There’s no cameras here,” he said, opening the door for me. “We had someone sweep it.” 

“He’s semi conscious in a hospital bed,” I replied, unclipping the sling and stretching my fingers out in relief as I rolled my stiff shoulder. “I think that’s beyond even him at the moment.” 

He saw the wince. “Can I do anything? Get the prescription filled, maybe? It'll start to ache…and you need your sleep.”

I thought of the little slip in my bag, the numbness of narcotics calling my name, and shook my head. “I’m fine. I need a clear head.”

He stepped closer, and I wanted to cry out as his arms remained rigidly at his side, even as his hands balled into tense fists. “You’re not fine.”

I opened my mouth to argue, when the room phone rang. Spencer brushed past me to answer it before I could, listening to the caller and then answering with a brusque “I’ll be right down” before hanging up.

“Your stuff is here. I’ll go grab it.” 

I let him go with nothing further to give. I wanted a shower. I wanted to stop feeling nothing. 

One I could remedy, the other I could not. 

...except apparently I could. I flicked on the water and stepped into the flimsy tub, flicking off my shirt and the thin joggers they’d given me at the hospital as I waited for the water to heat up. I reached behind my back to unclip the ill fitting bra they’d given me, but it all went to shit when I leaned down to peel my underwear over the bandage on my thigh. The change in position sent the blood rushing to my bruised head and I teetered forward, shooting out my bad arm to catch myself as I swayed. It howled under the sudden exertion and I pitched forward, slamming my shoulder against the base of the tub.

The pain shot up my arm and over my hip, pounding through the nerve endings until I could feel it throbbing in my skull, pitching through me until a sob of pain tore from my chest. It was the sob that did it. The sharp shock of the physical pain kicked everything else into gear - the terror, the relief, the fear of the unknown, fear of him, anger - hot boiling anger at the mockery he’d made of the life I was supposed to live, the years he’d stolen from me in keeping me in that fucking cage he’d built - _I’d built_ \- in my own head. 

Another sob ripped through me, and then another, and another until I was howling like a trapped wolf, curled on my side in the bottom of a plastic hotel bathtub, under the blistering heat of water that I could no longer feel. 

No, I could feel it. But against the weight of my entire life crashing down around me, what did it fucking matter?

I could feel everything, _everything, everything, everything, all of it_ , like it would never stop, and by fucking god… _it hurt._

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's short, but I felt like a dick for disappearing. I'll be posting a longer one tomorrow.
> 
> Nothing but lots of work taking up my time, and a complete writer's block that seems to have resolved itself this time around. 
> 
> The comments I got helped a lot, so thank you.


	16. Chapter 16

**_Spencer_ **

I was through the door before I knew what was happening. In that moment, nothing else mattered but the sound of something hitting the ground and the wracked yelp of pain devolving into hitched sobs. 

I couldn’t process the pile of clothes on the floor, or the fact that she was half-naked and that I _absolutely definitely should have knocked_ \- nothing mattered. She was curled up on the floor of the bath, her knees pulled into her chest, and her skin reddening under the heat of the water. 

I reached over her to shut off the water, wincing as I felt the heat of it on my arm. 

_“Don’t.”_

“It’s too hot,” I tried, but she shook her head, her eyes screwed up and her teeth gritted.

“I need to feel something...anything…” her voice broke as she turned her face into the wet strands of the hair pooling around her face. “I can’t be this empty.” My heart, already barely whole, shattered. 

I should have averted my eyes, and draped a towel over her like a gentleman. I should’ve stepped out and called someone… or given her space to cry and process the enormity of what had happened to her. 

I should have done literally anything other than what I chose to do, which was to shut off the water, toe off my shoes, toss my phone, wallet and holster into the pile of fabric on the floor and step gingerly into the bath behind her, pulling her up my torso until she was resting on my chest with my arms around her. Her skin was still livid with bruises, including the violently purple haematoma stretching all the way over her abdomen and up her back, marked with scrapes and cuts and bandaged stitches now soaked through, and my hands danced hesitantly before resting over her arm and thigh, holding her as tightly as I dared as those wrenching sobs tore through her.

There were no words to be found. Nothing I could possibly say could help with the sudden, violent release of emotion she’d been carrying for all these years, so I settled for tucking her head against my chest and rocking softly. 

“Let it out,” I finally managed, around the heavy lump in my own throat, as she sobbed brokenly, one hand pressed into her chest, the other gripping onto my arm for dear life until I could feel the welts of her nails digging into my skin. I held her tighter, grounding her against me as she hissed painful breaths in between the hitching sobs. 

I lost all track of time for how long I’d held her. I didn’t care. The world could fall down outside; as long as this bathroom remained standing and she stayed exactly where she was, I couldn’t care less. There were no words to be said. I couldn’t have found any even if I’d looked for them. My hands slipped up to her hair and pushed the wet strands back, trailing over her scalp as I felt the tension in her muscles release slightly with each brush over her scalp.The rictus of sobs ebbed, and the tears that trickled from her closed eyes and dripped off her chin were silent - until the only sound in the room the shaky breathing I could feel under my hands. 

She came back to herself in true Anya fashion. 

“Fuck,” she said, softly, and I helped her into a sitting position, steadying her as she winced and dropped a hand to her stomach. 

“Did you hurt anything when you slipped?” I asked. I’d already surreptitiously checked for any active bleeds but I’d been eyeing the dark bruise on her shoulder. 

She shook her head, scrubbing her hand over her cheek to wash away any residual tears before glancing down at my now soaked shirt and pants. I hadn’t really considered the consequences of climbing into a bath fully clothed when I’d done so. 

“Put those over the towel heater,” she said quietly. “They’ll be dry enough to wear in a little bit.” I tried to help her up, but she pushed herself up with her good arm and no assistance. “I’m okay. I’m going to take that shower now.” She was back to her old self - closing off. I wasn’t going to push her, so I stepped reluctantly out of the tub, gathered my things from the floor and went back into the bedroom, closing the bathroom door behind me, only to glance back as it opened againJ. 

“Are you not going to dry your clothes then?” She was holding out a towel to me, the other extended with an open palm. “Towel heater is in here.”

“I didn’t want…” 

She brushed over it. “Your clothes are soaked. Dry them off here...” She looked up at me. “Unless you need to rush off to your new case.” 

I heard the bite, and I took it. “I’m not rushing off anywhere,” I said, my fingers straying to undo the buttons on my shirt. “You wanted space.”

“I _wanted_ a shower,” she said firmly, challenging my position. 

The sudden flip from open emotion to cool rationalism was making my head spin, but I could see the compartmentalisation. It was the only way she could have survived all of this. I met her challenge, pulling off my shirt and unhooking my belt to drop my pants. I hesitated at my boxers, but she tilted her head.

“I think we’re past that stage now.”

“We were twenty years ago,” I replied, dropping them too and wrapping the proffered towel around my waist as I handed my sopping clothes to her. “Not sure if those stages still apply.”

She looked hurt at that, and I could have punched myself for my own idiocy. 

“I’m still her, somewhere in here,” she said quietly. “Aren’t you?”

She closed the door in my face before I could reply and I rested my forehead on the cool wood. 

**

I kept one ear pricked in case she fell again, perched awkwardly on a seat by the window as I waited for her to finish her shower. I’d texted Emily that I was staying here for a little longer, and the stilted ‘OK’ she’d sent back told me that this wouldn’t be the end of the conversation. At that moment though, I didn’t care, because Anya chose that moment to slip back through the door. 

I stood, adjusting the towel awkwardly to ensure it wouldn’t slip off.

“I…” the beginning of my apology was muffled as Anya crossed the short distance to me, wrapped a hand around the back of my neck and pulled me down into a bruising kiss. My brain short-circuited as I relaxed into it, my hands coming up to frame her waist, trailing over her ribs and up until I was cupping her jaw. She pressed against me, her own hands trailing over my waist, and hooking into the towel, applying just enough pressure for it to slip…

“Wait,” I gasped, pulling off her and dropping a hand to hold up the towel. “No.” 

She looked up at me, and I could see the fear of misstep, that she’d misread…I pulled her back towards me, cupping her jaw with one hand. 

“Not like this,” I breathed, my voice tight with the tension I was exerting trying to stay still. Her gaze dropped and she tried to pull her face away from my hand, her cheeks flushing into a hot, embarrassed flush. “Look at me.” She tugged back a little further, and I tightened my grip. “Look at me.” 

I met her eyes, and I could see the lust ebbing to the loneliness hidden underneath. 

_She just wanted to be touched._

She’d _always_ just wanted to be touched, to be held, to have someone else there, even for a fractional moment in the abject loneliness that had marked each part of her life. That most human of cravings that she’d been denied for all these years - when else are we touched but when we have sex? She’d associated the yearning need for someone to touch her, to hold her, to be physically present with her, with the necessity of paying for it with sex. A transactional relationship - her partner’s to satisfy a lust, hers to satisfy a soul-deep hunger.

I could boil it down to the scientific study of c-tactile afferents recognising gentle touch, to the constant state of cortisol production in a chronically stressful situation - in her case, her entire life. How it was scientifically understandable that she’d seek out the oxytocin to balance against the overproduction of cortisol in the mutual hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal and oxytocin regulator - her one-night stands a simple medical essential to her body’s biological need to counter the stress in the situation he’d put her in. It made perfect scientific sense…

But to the lonely kid I’d once been - with a father who didn’t want to and a mother who sometimes simply couldn’t...I knew skin hunger. It was a simple human understanding of need, shelter, safety. She’d shown me that the first time we’d ever had sex - touch me gently, it doesn’t matter where - she’d said, as I’d trailed my clumsy, inexperienced fingers over that soft skin, watching with fascination as I left goosepimples in my wake. Curious fascination as the kid I’d been, now replaced with the realisation of what it had meant for her. 

She was still trying to pull away, and I dropped my hand from her chin and wrapped it around her pulling her into my chest and burying my face in her damp hair. 

“Not like this,” I mumbled into the damp strands. “I’ll hold you, I’ll do whatever you want. But I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” 

I felt her wilt, and I pressed her tighter to my chest, brushing my hands over her spine and along her arms until I felt her knees give. I took two steps forward, bearing most of her exhausted weight and tugging her down to the bed. I gathered her up, pulling all of her limbs towards mine by wrapping my legs over hers and tucking her into my chest, curling myself around her until we were enmeshed on our sides. 

I kept up the movement of my hands, over and over in smooth comforting strokes until she was a dead weight in my arms. Glancing down, I could see her lids fluttering there as she tried to stay awake. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, and I shook my head. 

“No apologies,” I said, tucking my face back into her hair as I felt her drop further into me. “Sleep.”

To my relief, I felt her breathing even out as she did so, unable to fight the exhausted sleep deprivation for another moment. 

I’d promised her that I wouldn’t go anywhere, and I intended to keep my word. I pulled her gently over until she was lying on my chest so I could lie on my back, gazing through heavy lids at the ceiling. It wasn’t late. It wasn’t even dark out. But I couldn’t fight the fatigue that threatened - the palpable exhaustion that made the limbs I’d wrapped around her heavy and uncooperative. 

I tried to write it off as the poor night’s sleep I’d snatched in a hospital chair, the wild night chasing Anya’s digital shadow around New York, but I knew it was something deeper.

We’d talk in the morning. _If she was still here._

My limbs tightened unconsciously to keep her against me... and then relaxed.

_Her choice. Always._

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting somewhere at last!
> 
> I was flagging a bit on the writing front this week and spent most of the week doing fic recs on Tumblr in lieu of being a productive human being. 
> 
> I'm also quite sad as my favourite fic has ended, and now I have nothing to read. One of my favourite commenters posted a fab fic earlier which cheered me up - if you write, please let me know so I can read it!


	17. Chapter 17

**Anya**

He looked so achingly peaceful asleep. 

The last time I’d seen him sleeping had been when I’d slipped out of his room all those years ago, casting a half-second’s glance back at the boy I was abandoning in his bed. His face was older, but the expression was the same - the pinch between his eyebrows smoothed, his jaw relaxed open to a soft, relaxed snore...the hand resting lightly on my hip. 

My own hands were resting awkwardly between us; not quite pushing him away, but closing off from his chest, keeping a space between his heart and mine. It didn’t take a profiler to read that body language. 

For a long, languid moment, I rested there, unwilling to move from this calm halo he’d enshrined me in. We hadn’t even made it between the sheets - we were curled up in a puddle of morning sunlight in the middle of a hotel bed, naked as the day we were born but for a pair of flimsy hotel towels. 

The towels did it, bringing back the events of the night before with a crashing thud in my skull to accompany the stiff ache in my shoulder. I gritted my teeth, sliding gently backwards as the memory of being unable to do something as basic as take a shower without supervision or assistance, needing to be propped up while I howled like a stuck pig despite being perfectly safe, and then throwing myself at a man who was simply trying to do his job in keeping an eye on the ridiculously histrionic _victim_ … who was so fucked up she couldn’t recognise common decency without wanting to screw it - _and herself over_ \- every single time. 

_Get a fucking grip._

“What?” 

I’d said it aloud. 

I shifted back on the bed as Spencer blinked blearily at me, his eyes red and sore. Had he been crying, or had he just slept in his contacts? 

“Nothing,” I lied, tightening the towel around my chest as I pressed a shaky foot to the floor. He sat up, and tightened his own towel, a ridiculous display of modesty for two people who had quite literally seen it all before. “I’m just sorry...about last night.” 

I’d planned to grab the bag he’d dropped by the door and bolt into the bathroom but his hand was faster, catching my wrist. 

“I’m not.” His voice was so heartbreakingly open and imploring as he rearranged the words in his head before trying again. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.” 

“You didn’t ask to be caught up in my head trying to unfuck this mess,” I replied softly, tugging my arm out of his grasp, but my body made no move to step further away, caught in thrall by that achingly soft look he gave me. It was empathy personified and I couldn’t look away. 

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” he murmured. “You didn’t ask for any of this either.” 

“I shouldn’t have come onto you like that,” I apologised, the embarrassment permeating through my rough voice. Spencer shook his head, quelling the apology before I could form it. 

“Not that. Just not like this,” he said. “Not with all of this so raw for you. If...if we did, I’d want it to be when he’s a long way out of your mind.” 

I shouldn’t have been so startled by his admission, but I was. I’d all but served myself up on a platter last night and he’d turned me down. I’d chalked it up to the thirty-eight year old reality against the memory of the twenty-one year olds we’d once been, a kind, sympathetic man who wasn’t actually attracted to his one night stand from decades ago...but this.... 

This was very new. 

We blinked at one another for a fraction of a second, unable to collect the realisation into anything approaching cogent speech. 

Anything further was interrupted by his cellphone, vibrating in the corner of the room. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips together in evident frustration. 

“Go,” I whispered, picking up my bag from the floor and closing the bathroom door behind me after laying out his now dry clothes on the chair - giving him his privacy, and giving myself a closed door to press myself against as I tried to make sense of the swirl of semi-stable emotions ricocheting around my head.

My mind was at war with itself, and I felt like I was holding on for dear life. The cold, bitter side of me was howling that this was a ridiculous fantasy, that I was deluding myself in the most embarrassing way, trying and failing at fending off the agonised, emotional corner of my brain that wanted to fling open the door and hurl myself headlong at him. _He doesn’t want you,_ I heard a familiar voice hiss, and I could have set it on fire with the wave of virulent hatred that surged at the sound of it. I’d been listening to that voice for far too long, letting it box off any chance of danger, any perceived risk, any leap into the unknown propelled only by the butterflies in my stomach… until my life was a sum of nil parts. 

_You want him_ , a different voice said, quietly, pragmatically. It was a voice that was at once so like my own, and at once so not like any voice I was used to battling in my darkest times. I felt the shock and warmth spread through my belly as I listened to myself, the me that was my own voice, voicing my own desires, desires that were unencumbered by the fear I’d been living under. Amidst all the noise, I had never really heard this side of me - this unafraid, unabashed side that was perfectly clear in what she wanted.

Yes. Yes I do.

_Then gather ye rosebuds while ye may._

He was off the phone by the time I emerged. He was dressed in last night’s clothes, and the sight of him made my heart falter as he looked up and gave me a half smile. 

“Feeling better?”

“Getting there.” 

He seemed pleasantly surprised by the optimistic honesty, but I could see the reluctance in his body language. 

“You’re going.” He nodded. “Now?” Another nod.

I digested the information, the idea that he had come into my life again at the unexpected moment and was disappearing as suddenly as he’d arrived. 

Much as I had to him, all those years ago. 

_Gather ye rosebuds_ … I took a breath.

“I know I lost the right to ask, years ago…” I said softly, meeting his gaze. “But I don’t want to disappear into the night this time.” 

The corners of his eyes dropped as his expression crumpled. I had a fraction of a second before his hands were on me and he was cupping my chin to press his lips in a bruising kiss against mine. This had nothing on the soft, soothing kisses of last night, or the timid, inexperienced kisses from before. This was so much more. I could feel the electric tension he was gripping onto by a thread, the insistent urge as he pressed himself closer to my chest, my hips, until my head was spinning and when we broke apart both of our chests were heaving as our foreheads pressed together and he moved his nose gently against mine. I could hear his phone buzzing in his hip, and heard his jaw grind as he pressed a frustrated kiss against my forehead. 

“If I could stay…” he began, and I nodded against his lips pushing back slightly so I could meet his eyes. 

“It’s okay,” I replied, pushing his hair back from his forehead. “We can rain check on the morning after.” 

He considered this, and then dug his hand in his pocket and withdrew a small business card, pressing it into my hand and curling my fingers over it. 

“My cell number is written on the back,” he murmured. “Call anytime. I can’t promise I’ll always be there to answer, but I’ll call back as soon as I can.”

“I don’t need you to do that for me,” I whispered, but he was shaking his head before I had half the words out, brushing his thumb over my lips.

“I want to do so much more,” he murmured. “This will need to do for now.” He seemed upset by this supposedly small gesture, so I reached up and kissed him again, cupping my hand around the back of his neck and pulling him into me. His own hands came up to frame my jaw, his thumb grazing over my jawbone. 

“Go,” I whispered, and he pulled himself from me with visible reluctance, shrugging his jacket on and casting one last look as he went to the door. “This isn’t done,” I reminded him softly. “It’s only a rain check.” 

”Rain check,” he confirmed quietly, closing the door behind him and I listened until his footsteps faded away to silence. 

**

To nobody’s surprise, least of all my own, I didn’t call him. 

There was still something there, still lurking beneath the surface. Twenty years was a whole lot of fear to shake off, and I still had a long way to go. 

Try as I might, it still paralysed my fingers when I moved to dial his number, my mind clearing to nothing when I tried to send a text. I was like a hapless teenager, afraid of calling her schoolyard crush, too wrapped up in my own head to acknowledge the simple fact of our last exchange in the hotel room.

I couldn’t call him. I couldn’t trust my head to find the words that I was unsure if my voice would stand up to saying aloud. 

For the hellish, tumultuous fortnight that followed, I shut Spencer Reid in a box and concentrated on the enormous task of trying to reconstruct something of my life. 

My boss had been alarmingly helpful - given that I’d stolen from his office, interfered with a federal investigation on company premises, and his favourite Armani wool coat was currently soaked in blood and bagged up in evidence pending trial. He’d fixed me with a look approaching sympathy that had freaked us both out, and told me to take the time I needed. If a pig had flutter past the floor to ceiling window, I would have been less surprised. 

The FBI’s New York delegation were less than helpful in releasing the rest of my old apartment, and I spent the first three days in my new studio sleeping on the floor and eating out of plastic takeout containers. When the call finally came, I called in the movers, and arranged for the building super to go up to the apartment while I waited downstairs. Even now… I still couldn’t cross the threshold of the little space that had been my home for ten years. 

I’d hidden the swollen eyes and damp cheeks from the movers as they’d started bringing the boxes out and loading them onto the van. There wasn’t much. I’d never been one for keeping things. The largest collection of anything I’d owned was the letters I’d been dragging round for twenty years - and now they were gone. The rest - clothes, a few books, towels and bedlinen, a few kitchen utensils. No family photographs, no beautiful ornaments collected from my long and extensive - as if - travels. No gifts from friends, no slightly awkward off-registry unwanted wedding gifts. Just the mundane everydays for a woman who did nothing more interesting than make coffee for breakfast and heat up dinner for one every evening. 

All of my earthly possessions fitted into one small box-back truck. I had the movers lug my boxes upstairs to the new apartment where they sat, untouched in the middle of my floor. They still felt dirty...tainted by that apartment. 

My bed arrived the following day, and I stared between the flat pack, the unhelpful delivery driver, and the massive sling on my arm. 

The bed did it for me. 

He’d begrudgingly helped me carry it upstairs, my end propped awkwardly against my bad shoulder, had helped me stand it against the spare wall, and then had taken his leave - off to the next delivery with only bemused disdain for the freak who’d burst into tears at the sight of the bed. 

It had taken me most of the night to build it, propping the pieces awkwardly between my legs as my one good arm sought to screw in endless hundreds of minute screws to try and make something that meant I wouldn’t be sleeping on the floor again, something to show that this wasn’t a temporary change of scenery, but a new home - a new life. 

I’d sworn, caught my leg with a wayward screwdriver, and had buried my face in my hands when I’d realised I’d screwed two pieces together upside down and would have to unpick and start again. 

I was lying on the floor, in the middle of the skeleton structure of the damnable torment I’d inflicted on myself, about to reach for the pain pills I’d been avoiding all week when I realised the sun was coming up. 

I sat up, and watched. My old apartment’s windows had been open to the brick wall of another building. I’d chosen it deliberately - feeling safer that I wasn’t being overlooked. It didn’t matter anyway. I’d bought blackout blinds the following day and they’d been closed as soon as I’d installed them - never to be opened again.

Now, my windows opened to the world below, and I watched the sunrise with tired eyes, the bedframe forgotten around me. I watched the sky until long after the sun had risen and the city had come back to life.

I couldn’t call him. I still didn’t trust myself to find the right words - but there was an address on the card. The FBI Academy, in Quantico, Virginia. 

_The only letter you ever gave me… was for Spencer fucking Reid._

**Too fucking right.**

I tore a page out of a notebook, found an old pen in my papers box and began to undo eighteen years.


	18. Chapter 18

**Spencer**

I’d been on tenterhooks, checking my phone surreptitiously at any given moment for a chirrup indicating a call or even just a text. 

“She’s still trying to put things together,” Emily said quietly, eyeing me over the top of a file. 

“I know,” I sighed. “Doesn’t make being away from her any easier.” 

“She’s really caught you, hasn’t she?” Emily’s voice held only concern, and I rankled at it. 

“You can tell me it’s wrong to get involved until you’re hoarse, but I can’t change the way I feel,” I replied, but Emily was shaking her head. 

“Spence, no,” she said quietly. “You had history with her, with the whole case. It’s hard to be objective when that happens. God knows - I d…” She trailed off, the end unnecessary. 

“I know it’s not the right thing to do,” I whispered. “She needs someone who can be there with her.” 

Emily considered this, and then leaned across the table. “I know I don’t know her all that well…”

“Nor do I,” I admitted, and I saw Emily’s eyes drop in acknowledgement. 

“But I saw enough to tell me that she’s the sort of person who needs to work things out in her own head first before she ventures outside of it, ” she murmured, and placed down the closed file between us. “And there’s a lot to work out right now.” 

“Yeah,” I agreed, but it did nothing to shed the weight pressing down on my shoulders. 

“She’s done everything, her whole life, by herself,” she continued. “Opening up her life is a big step. She might need a little time to make it.”

“What if she doesn’t want it with me?” I whispered. 

“That’s the risk we take,” she murmured. “Loving someone first. Sometimes we just have to wait and see.”

It was waiting for me on my desk when I finally made it back to the office.

The envelope was a clinical white, with my name and rank printed neatly above the address, and perched incongruously amidst the mess of books I’d left piled on the desk.  
I dropped my bag on the ground, and glanced furtively around before snatching up the letter and slitting open the top. It seemed an odd medium, given the emotional weight it bore, but the handwriting seemed steady - as though the act of writing was calming. It wasn’t scrawled, the words were careful and considered.

_Spencer,_

_I’m sorry._

_I am. And I have the right to be, and the right to feel it. Maybe the reason I wanted to write this letter is because I’m tired of shouting into a void that didn’t want to know - the sum of a life lived and the people I’ve hurt by proximity. Not all of it was my fault, but guilt isn’t always rational._

_I’ve missed out on so many parts of life that the notion that you’d slip through my fingers again was just so gut wrenching I couldn’t process it. I couldn’t call because finding the words to express the fear is something I think will always be slightly beyond me._

_For a long time, I convinced myself that the half-life I had was enough. It was enough - to brush my fingers over love and life and ordinary and to watch it as it grew._

_One of the last things Rachel ever said to me stuck with me for all the years that came after - she said: ‘what happens if you meet someone you couldn’t give up?’ It was the night after we slept together, and I’d left you. For the longest time, I thought she was ridiculous for saying it - how could I ever condemn anyone to what had happened to Chris? That was my beast of burden for always - but maybe there was some truth to it._

_What happens if the person I couldn’t give up was me?_

_You saw me, the real me, that night. Not this scared, angry bitch I wear to keep people away from me. She’s part of me, the part that I grew to keep myself safe. But the person that you saw that night - that girl with the shitty humour, the competitiveness at cards, and the one who climbed back into bed with you?_

_If I’d had the choice then, without the coercion of everything that stopped me from doing so, I want you to know that I would’ve chosen you. I would have stayed, and accepted the consequences that come in the cold light of the morning._

_Perhaps it’s been too long. Perhaps I had my share of good fortune when my old life ended, and this strange new world was given to me with no instruction manual for how to assemble it._

_But if my share of luck isn’t exhausted, then there’s something I’d like to make amends for._

_You know where to find me._

_A._

**

Her new building was far nicer than her last one. 

It was apropos to her situation - her last had been a converted walk-up, slouched in the shadow of its taller neighbours, until it seemed cramped and small - downcast. Her new building was modern, stretching up into the skyline as tall as any other as it faced into the sunlight. 

I’d slipped in behind an arriving tenant, and now stood outside the door to her unit, hand poised to knock when the door opened. We both yelped, and she jumped back in shock. 

“Hi,” I said lamely, dropping my hand. 

She pressed a hand to her heart and let out a laugh. “Hi.”

“I got your letter,” I tried, but my brain wasn’t forming the sentences I wanted. 

“I guessed as much,” she smiled, shifting her shopping tote onto her arm. She was clearly on her way somewhere. I shouldn’t have just turned up, I should’ve called ahead… “Did you solve your case?” 

“I - uh, what?” 187, and stammering like a teenager.

“The case,” she repeated. “The one you went on.” 

“Oh, uh. Yeah,” I cleared my throat. “Yes.”

She smiled that soft, exasperated smile she’d given me when I’d stumbled over my words all those years before. “Would you like to come in?”

“I can come back later,” I offered, gesturing vaguely at the tote in her hand. She dropped it in her hallway and held the door open to me. 

“Come in, Spencer.” How could I refuse? 

The apartment was sparsely furnished, but I could see the beginnings of a home forming. There were library books sprawled over the upturned crate serving as a coffee table, and laundry half folded under the window. A pile of boxes, still taped closed, had been pushed against the far wall. 

“Appraising me, Dr. Reid?” She asked, lifting a blanket from the couch to provide seating space.

“It’s nice,” I replied, irritated at how limp the compliment sounded. “Airy. Sunny.” What the hell was wrong with me?

“Don’t quit your day job for real estate anytime soon,” she snorted, undoing the scarf she’d tied around her hair as she slipped into the kitchenette. “Coffee?”

“Please,” I replied, glancing out of the window as I tried to corral my thoughts into the carefully rehearsed script I’d been practicing on the plane.

“You okay?” Her tone wasn’t curious. She could see I wasn’t as she handed me my coffee, and we supped them in silence, looking out onto the skyline, the traffic below, the river beyond… anywhere but at each other. 

“I had so much to say,” I confessed. “And it’s like...I can’t find the words.” 

“I couldn’t either,” she admitted. “That’s why I didn’t call.” 

“I used to think about it,” I tried. “If I saw you again. What I’d say.”

“What did you think about saying?” I could feel her eyes on me, even as I kept mine firmly on the world outside her window. 

“At first, I was so hurt.” I swallowed hard against the memory. “I… a lot of people used to leave. I thought it was me.” I could practically hear her face crumpling, but I didn’t trust myself to look at her. “And then it became more like anger...like you’d used me. And then it just became indifference.” 

I saw her look away and I brought my hand up to her jaw, finally touching her and feeling the nerves spark under my skin. 

“And then I saw you again, and it was everything, all at once.” 

“Doesn’t sound like a good thing.” 

“It was like the very best of things,” I told her. “All those realisations, all those feelings… and I just wanted to be near you again.” 

I heard the soft scoff in her voice as she took in my words, her eyes dropping to the hand she brought up to my chest, gently feathering the fingers until they were splayed over my heart. “I hurt you by leaving. I hurt you by ever getting involved in the first place.”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t have changed it. Not for the world.” 

“I wasn’t all that,” she murmured, and I saw the painful vulnerability hiding under her tone. 

“You were to me.” 

Her lips found mine first. It was soft, and painfully gentle as her body curved against mine, her hand slipping up my spine to pull me closer as my own slipped into the soft hair at the nape of her neck to cradle it as I returned the kiss with a soft groan of relief. If our kiss from the hotel had been hungry and pained, this was the opposite. This was peaceful, open… two souls coming home to roost on the same perch. 

If we could have stayed in that moment forever, we would have. It was her wince that broke us apart, her hand falling from my back to take hold of the coffee cup in her other hand, shaking off the slight burn of the coffee she’d spilled on her wrist while distracted. I gently took it from her as she rubbed over the slightly scalded skin with her thumb. 

“Should run it under cold water…” I began but she shook her head. 

“Just a drop,” she interrupted. “It’s fine.” 

“Scalds should…” 

She kissed me again, an unsubtle plea for me to stop babbling. I made a noise of frustration at the occupation of my hands with both coffee cups. She snorted, her lips curling into a smile against mine as she took both cups back, leaving my hands empty but for the ghostly warmth from where her hands had brushed against mine. “It’s not that dramatic.” 

I collected myself as she turned to set the cups down on the ledge, the enforced separation giving my head the room to breathe anything but the heady scent of her perfume, her skin, her. 

“You would have stayed,” I said quietly. 

“Yes,” she replied, the simple, immediate honesty shining like a beacon out of her tired voice. 

“If I asked you to...stay now. Would you?” She could hear the real question under my clumsy words. 

“Yes.” The same gentle honesty. “But, Spencer…” 

Always a but. There was always a but. I wilted, but her hands were on me before I could slump away, reeling from the rejection.

“I’m not back there yet,” she murmured. “That brazen girl I was when you knew me.” Her eyes were wide, and blisteringly honest. “I talk the good talk about how he couldn’t break me, about how I lived a life in spite of him… and it’s true. I did. But,” she enunciated carefully, her eyes imploring me not to fall away again. “He damaged me. He made me afraid, he made me doubt who I was, he watched as I built a cage around myself to keep the whole world out and that cage isn’t down yet. I don’t know if it ever really will be, or whether I’ll ever be a whole person again, completely free of him. I probably won’t.” 

I waited obediently, fighting down the urge to argue with her, to soften the edges of her blunt honesty with soothing lies. 

“But if I have to live as half a person for the rest of my life, then I will. And I’ll see every last day of it out… but I can’t tell you that it’s… that I’m going to be easy.”

I chewed over this frank admission, turning it over in my mind. I’d known this. I’d known it from the concerned looks Emily hadn’t stopped shooting me since we’d left New York, known it from the anxious, sleepless nights I’d spent thinking of her until the pit in my stomach was dragging me through the mattress. 

“I know.” 

There were better words than this - more poetic, more beautiful assertions of how I felt, what I wanted, how deeply my feelings for her ran. But in that moment, in a world in which we were comparably two strangers thrown together by two chance encounters, in a maelstrom of tumultuous change that had thrown our respective lives to the mercy of the wind and left us to hold on to nothing except each other...there were no other words. 

I knew her. I saw her for all that she was, and for the parts of herself she hadn’t yet shown. I wanted to wait for them, to let her unfurl herself and stretch out her wings until I knew her, body and soul. I wanted to see the light she’d dimmed within herself, wanted to see it sparkle in those eyes with mischief, flirtation, humour, arousal, lov... 

Need was too involuntary, crave was too pejorative, yearn was too pathetic… I wanted her. I wanted all of her, I wanted to be close to her, I wanted her. 

She stepped into the void between her heart and mine, and slid her hands until they were cradling my jaw, those eyes gazing imploringly into mine. 

“You don’t know me at all yet, Spencer Reid,” she murmured softly, and I revelled in the breeze her words ruffled in my hair. 

_Yet._

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not 100% happy with this chapter, as indeed, I'm not happy with any of the chapters I've written so far, which are all completely in the wrong order, out of sync and frankly grammatically abhorrent. BUT. If you bear with me...
> 
> (1) Smut is coming...probably very soon. Like very soon. Like...next chapter. 
> 
> (2) The big climax has been re-written about six times and changed each time. 
> 
> (3) The next one is going to be a long one.
> 
> Thank you for your comments. They are a joy to read, particularly on the down weeks when the gremlin is out on strike, or just straight up fucking AWOL.


	19. Chapter 19

**Anya**

Each day that he stayed, I felt closer to being human again. Closer and yet so much further away with each morning that we woke in the same bed, chastely dressed in grandfatherly pyjamas with nothing more salacious than a good night kiss exchanged.

When he returned to DC, lured back by the insistence of his boss on a case in Virginia that required his expertise, he’d called me each night to discuss the weather, a book he’d been reading, the intriguing rise and fall of the WeWork stock (I gave him points for trying), and anything else that served as a nice dance around the two elephants at opposite corners of the room. 

The first was the burgeoning something-something between us; this peculiar almost-relationship that sent two grown adults into the same bed every night without so much as an attempt at second base. 

The other was the trial that now had a date, and a name: _The State of New York v Keller_ , and a defendant arraigned by both of the states of New York and Pennsylvania. California had declined, a fact I was both grateful for and enraged by. Even at the last, Pasadena was finding a way to let me down. 

New York was doing its level best to compete - ceding to Keller’s attorney’s motion to disallow various pieces of evidence that was supposedly discriminatory to his client. The ADA had made plenty of soothing noises about it being only peripheral to the case, and not essential to the body of the argument. Spencer, to his eternal credit, had sat in perfect silence at the other end of the phone as I ranted about the need for them to see it, see what he did to me. He’d managed to interject only once, and had quickly realised that I didn’t want logic, I wanted his shared anger which he seemed so reluctant to give. I couldn’t understand it at first - this strange reticence, this silence that he assured me was nothing to do with me. I’d pressed until he’d shut down, and we’d left each other to cool off. I hadn’t expected to hear from him. 

He’d turned up on my doorstep, his eyes bruised with exhaustion and weighed down with something he could barely wait until I had the door open for him to impart.

“I was in prison.” 

I blinked at him, not understanding as he closed the door behind himself and brushed past me to stand in the middle of the living room, as if squared for a fight in a ring. 

“I don’t understand.” There wasn’t anything else to say. 

“A few years ago,” he said, his voice tight and his hands spawning into fists that contracted and relaxed until the pulse I could see in his forehead. “I didn’t do it.”

“What did they think you did?” I asked, the curiosity overwhelmed by the trepidation. 

“Murder.” His voice was soft, more of a croak than a word. I let the word roll around in my mind, fighting back the memories of a night so long ago. A carjacking gone wrong.

I couldn’t reconcile it - my gentle Spencer against the rabid slashing monster of my nightmares. But this strange, exhausted tower of a man with bruised eyes and an injured soul wasn’t my Spencer either.

“You didn’t do it.” 

“No.” 

“But you empathise with him.” He seemed tormented by my words, which was the precise opposite of what I wanted to achieve. 

“Not...it’s not empathy,” he struggled out, but his voice failed him at the qualifier. 

“The memories?” I realised aloud, catching the last syllable to phrase it as a question, to give him an out if he needed it. 

“Yes.” The relief in his voice was almost palpable. “It brings them back, and some days it’s like I’m there, in that courtroom, all over again. I’ve testified since, I’ve… this is personal.”

I felt as though a bucket of iced water had been dumped over me, chilling me to the very spine. 

“I didn’t know…” He was already shaking his head. 

“I want to be here for you. I will be here for you, I’m not leaving this now.” 

“Spencer, I’ll manage,” I began, but he released his stance, breaking the tense rigidity to grasp my upper arms and pull me towards him again, finally. 

“We both will. But I’m not going to be anywhere,” he enunciated, forcing my gaze with his until I was pinned in place, entranced by the roiling emotion behind his eyes, “but right here, with you.” 

What could I possibly do but kiss him? 

It was soft, as they all were. Two people, scarred by long lives, kissing like timid teenagers. It was absurd - he knew me, all of me, in every possible intimate way, and he held me as chastely as a homeschooled Boy Scout. I was no better, kissing him with not a hint of the passion I kindled for him, with the limp insipidity of the little church girl I had never been. 

Like a ... _godly_ woman. 

It was enough. I’d _never_ be that woman. Never.

I dropped my hands, fisting the lapels of his jacket and dragging him into me, relishing in the startled grunt he let out against my lips as I pressed against him. An involuntary gasp slipped out as I felt the planes of his body, filled out and hardened with the muscle that his lanky body had so endearingly lacked all those years ago. 

“Spencer, please,” I gasped, tugging at his shirt as my fingers fumbled against the buttons. He was no help, apparently over his shock at the sudden shift between us, pushing his leg between my thighs and pressing sharp, nipping kisses against the column of my throat. I ground down on his thigh, resting my weight on the wall behind me, and he pulled me down against it until the pressure sent my eyes rolling into the back of my head. I felt him smile against my throat as I swore in a choked groan to the ceiling. 

“Off,” I hissed, tugging at his shirt. He, mercifully, obliged, and I pressed myself to the warmth of his skin, dragging him up by the jaw for another bruising kiss. “Need it,” I murmured, unable to manage anything more than a moan as he pulled down the zip of my dress and tugged it off my shoulders until it pooled around my hips. He’d already hiked it up to push his thigh between my legs until it was an absurd bustle. 

“Off,” I begged again, as his mouth moved against mine in his own unsteady pattern of breathing, murmuring words I wasn’t supposed to hear. He obliged, dropping and pulling it down my legs until it circled my feet. I had barely a second before he had hooked his fingers into my underwear and dragged those down my thighs too, replacing the feel of the soft satin with the even softer feel of his lips, moving against my folds and spreading them until I could feel his tongue against my clit. I keened, dropping a hand to fist in his hair and dropping my head back until it thudded against the wall. 

“Please,” I breathed, as if he needed any form of inducement. His hand trailed up my thigh and slipped against the wet heat as his tongue worked in a sinful rhythm that sent sparks through my groin and down my thighs until my knees could no longer bear my weight. I tried to lock them out to keep myself upright, but he had already dropped his other hand to cup the back of my knee, tugging it over his shoulder until he was bearing the brunt of my weight even as his mouth moved faster. I groaned, a low keening sound that bubbled through my chest and arched from my mouth in a choked gasp. His fingers moved against me, fluttering against the sensitive skin, and then gently sliding inside and curling until they were pressed against the ridged spot that sent lightwaves through my brain. I couldn’t speak, I could barely breathe as he dragged me closer until my fingers lost their grip on his hair as my body spasmed and my supporting leg dropped. He seemed unperturbed by my inability to hold myself, pulling away just long enough to loop his hands around my waist and pull me over to the bed on the other side of the room, depositing me on my ass even as he dragged my hips to the edge of the bed and dropped to his knees once more. 

Now unencumbered by the muscular control needed to stay upright, I arched through the movements of his tongue against my clit, crying out as his fingers moved faster - pulling me closer and closer to release. My breathing was nothing more than spontaneous pants, interceded with pleading whimpers as he dragged me to the edge with that clever mouth and determined fingers...and threw me over the edge as I arched against him, my hands clawing in the sheets as they slipped against the sheen of sweat coating my skin as I sobbed out a benediction that might have been his name. He nursed me through it, slowing his fingers and the pressure of his mouth, shifting it until he was pressing gentle kisses around it, over my thighs and hips, the curve beneath my bellybutton. I lifted a hand to rake through his hair as the trembling in my legs began to wane. 

I reached down and lifted his chin, pulling gently with my forefinger until he shifted obediently up my body. He pressed wayward kisses to my flushed skin all the way up until he could press his lips against mine as his hand moved gently through my hair. 

I managed a shaky smile as he brushed his nose against mine. “You’ve been practicing since the last time.” 

It broke the tension and I felt him let out a relieved laugh. “You have no idea.” 

I stroked back the messy curls, relishing in the way he unconsciously followed the warmth of my hand, curling into it like a cat. “Do you ever regret it?” It slipped out before I could stop it, and I cringed away from the consequences. 

He was looking curiously at me, even as I dodged his gaze. 

“You don’t have to answer that…”

“Not once.” The finality in his voice held none of the endearing sentimentality from before. The truth, laid bare in the emotional wrought of all that it had caused us. “Not ever.” 

In an unsubtle attempt to shut him up, I kissed him again, long, languid, and lonely - pressing myself to him as if to warm the cold marble of my untouched skin. He wrapped his arms around me, pressing his weight down onto me until I was pinned between him and the mattress, moving only with the rhythm of his breathing, counted out the warm exhale of his breath onto the sweat cooling on my neck. 

Neither of us moved, even as the pressure began to make itself known to my ribs and pelvis, and the uncomfortable chafe of the fabric of his trousers against my sensitive thighs began to shift from uncomfortable to outright discomfort. He was off me before I could voice anything, absurdly attuned to my body language. I watched limply as he shucked off his trousers and pulled the coverlet out from where I’d rucked it with my writhing. I wriggled backwards obediently as he laid down beside me, and pulled the cover over us both. 

“You didn’t…” 

He kissed my nose softly, and wrapped an arm around me, dragging me against his chest. “In the morning. I’m so tired I wouldn’t be able to keep it for any respectable length of time.” 

I snorted, and kissed his jaw as I nestled down into his chest and revelled in the feeling of the dozy kisses he was pressing to my hair. 

_It felt like a beginning._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m in the middle of one of the biggest work cases I’ve ever been instructed on, so my life is just all topsy turvy at the moment, and I’m working until 2-3am on some days. Whatever ridiculousness I’ve written below was written while trying to keep myself awake and upright on the train commute to and from work, on my phone, so I apologise for any hideous spelling/grammar/continuity/general errors. 
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading this dumbass word vomit.


End file.
